Summer of Fun? Summer of Fun!

I know summer doesn't technically begin until June 20th, but considering it's going to be 90 degrees the next few days, I'm already in the mind-set. I love summer. Don't get me wrong, fall is still my all-time favorite season (helloooooo football season!), but there is just something about summer and being able to be outside all day and well into the night and not having to wear a coat.

Even though I'm in the working world (and have been for a little while now, but I'm in denial of that still I think), and no longer get summers off, I still feel like I have more free time to do fun things. Or maybe that's just because there are more fun things to do in the summer since it's warm, sunny, and lighter longer. I always have grand plans to do things over the summer, but then I forget about all the fun things I see there is to do and end up spending most of my time at the pool. Not that that's an all around bad thing, but I will not do (just) that this summer! I am actually putting things on my calendar to remind myself of said fun events so I actually remember to go to them. I will continue to add as I learn about things as well.

I have a couple fun trips planned, going to a beach or some other type of warm place with my friend Laura, a weekend trip to Syracuse/The 1000 Islands with some of my girls, and a weekend trip to Chicago and Milwaukee with my other girls.  So that's exciting, but those are only a few weekends out of the nice long summer. So what else have I seen that I want to do? Here is my list (and these are things that I need other people to do with me, so if you want to join me, just let me know :-) I would love to have some company):

Fun Things with Specific Dates:

• The NC Symphony: Totally Awesome 80s on June 23.
• I love the 80s, the symphony is really talented, and this concert is at Koka Booth, so it sounds like a great combination.
• THE OLYMPICS on July 27 to August 12.
• I love the Olympics. Seriously. Winter. Summer. Doesn't matter. I love it all. Hopefully since this will obviously end up being a hot summer, I won't feel as bad spending those couple weeks indoors watching these. Or I could find a bar with a nice patio and TVs outside and force people to watch with me. CAN'T WAIT.
• Festival of Cheese on August 4
• Okay, so I'm probably not going to this, mostly because of the $55 entry fee ($55???? I know right). But as a serious cheese lover, I was almost tempted, and just wanted to share it. How could you not want to go to a thing called the Festival of Cheese?????
• Lazy Daze on August 25
• Fun crafts festival in Cary. I haven't been in awhile, but I always remember liking it. It's a good excuse to go walk around outside too.
• BugFest on September 15
• Part of me wants to go because I want to try eating bugs (why? I don't know. Because then I could say I've eaten bugs?)
• Movies at the NCMA on multiple dates
• I'd probably love to go to most of these, but the ones I have my eye on are The Muppets, The Artist, Casablanca, Ghostbusters, and The Godfathers. 
• Koka Booth is also doing a movie thing, with some other possible alternatives.

Fun Things with No Specific Dates (these are more just general activities that I'm interested in doing):

• Durham Bulls games! I love going to these, always have.
• Along the same vein, I'm very excited to watch my nephew play tee-ball this summer. Oh the memories! 
• Playing golf. The more I work on fixing my swing (and not having it fly to the right every. single. time.), I want to actually play some rounds. Of par 3 of course. And not in the middle of the day when it's blazing hot. I burn easily, people! 
• Paddle boating at Lake Johnson. I remember doing this a lot when I was younger, and always had fun. And every time I see other people doing it at the lake, I always think that I need to too. Plus, it's a good leg workout!
• Trip to Carowinds or Busch Gardens. I've been in the mood to go to an amusement park and ride some roller coasters! Busch Gardens would probably be preferable because I like all the other fun things you can do there. 
• Lots of walks. Lots and lots of walks. Since I'm not a runner (except when chasing down drug addicts who steal my purse in Target), I prefer to take walks, which are still a good workout anyways. Lake Johnson, Pullen Park, Umstead, etc. All good places. Plus I'm sure there are other greenways worth exploring. If I can't find friends to walk with me, I might get the 30-day trial of Spotify Premium at some point so I can listen to upbeat music while I walk.
• Day trips to the beach/hanging out at the pool, with good books to read, good friends to talk to, and good drinks in my hand. Let's face it, these are givens. Especially since I don't think I went to the beach once last year. Lame on my part, but I will try to make up for it this year. 
• Bake lots of yummy summer desserts and hopefully having a lot of fun cookouts with friends. Also a given. I see lots of fruit and light flavors in my future. 

So that's the list so far. I think it's a pretty good one, but I am open to many more additions, as well as people to join me!

*Side note: Can you tell I love a good list?*

Cadbury Creme Egg Brownies

With Easter comes a lot of leftover candy. One of my favorites? The Cadbury Creme Eggs. The originals. Not the caramel version. Not the mini version. The originals. I also love Cadbury because they don't feel the need to change their commercial to be all fancy. Who doesn't love other animals trying to pretend to be a bunny? NOBODY. That's who.

So what do you do when you have too much leftover candy and know that you'll either get sick from eating it all in one sitting, or let it sit on the counter for weeks until it's stale (there is never any normal in between with leftover candy...at least for me)? You use it for baking! It's been over a year since I discovered a recipe for brownies topped with Cadbury creme eggs, and I've been thinking about them ever since last Easter, so this year, I finally made them! 

Start with 3/4 cup flour, 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, and 1/4 tsp salt. Whisk together in a bowl and set aside. 

Then in your mixer, combine 3/4 cup light brown sugar, 3/4 cup sugar...

...with 1/2 a cup (or 1 stick) of melted butter (mmmm butter)...

...and 1 tablespoon vanilla. You'll mix this together for about three minutes on medium speed.

After everything is well combined, you'll add in two eggs, one a time. Make sure you use real eggs and not Cadbury eggs. It'll throw the whole recipe off. Mix those in for about 20 seconds after each addition.

Then you'll slowly mix in the dry ingredients until everything is just moistened. And then, because there won't be enough sugar as it is, fold in 1/2 a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Then you'll spread the batter into a lightly greased 8x8 inch pan, and bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

While those are baking, you'll want to cut your Cadbury eggs up! You can do however many you want, and I probably went a little overboard with it. The one nice things about the Cadbury's is that they have that nice seam down the middle, so they are super easy to cut.

When the 25 minutes are up, pull the pan out, push the egg halves into the brownies, and then bake for another 5 minutes so they set.

LOOK AT ALL THAT SUGAR. I'm not entirely sure how I didn't gain 50 pounds just by staring at these. The brownies ended up being super fudgy and delicious, and you certainly don't need more than a small section to satisfy your sweet tooth craving. The Cadbury filling was really interesting after baking and then cooling because it solidified. It did make it easier to shove in my mouth though. It looked like my coworkers enjoyed them because I brought home an empty pan at the end of the day!

Spring (and Summer?) Wreath

I took my winter wreath down about a month or so ago because the form was starting to sag way too much, plus, considering how warm it's been here lately, it just seemed wrong having it up even though I hadn't made one for the spring yet. So my wreath hanger just kind of stayed lonely on my door for awhile...until today!

I pinned this wreath on Pinterest awhile ago because I just loved the vintagey vibe to it, and every time I looked at it on my board, it just made me happy. I finally got around to buying my supplies, and with a three day weekend, I knew I had the couple hours to devote to making it. Since it's already well into spring, this may end up being my wreath for both spring and summer. We'll see if I decide to be super productive in a few months because my other wreath idea will be very time consuming.

I got it in my head awhile ago, that I definitely wanted to keep with the stripe fabric like my inspiration wreath, but there was just something in my head screaming "Seersucker!!" I was a bit worried that I would have this idea and not be able to find the fabric I really wanted. I saw it online at Jo-Ann's, but I wasn't sure if I'd be able to find it in the actual store. Luckily, I walked in, and found my way straight to it! I picked up a yard of the lime green seersucker, which ended up being more than plenty of fabric (it's about 42" wide, so a yard was plenty). I then went over to the felt fabric sheets and choose some colors for my flowers. It was a little difficult because I didn't want something too bright or too dark, or too not coordinating. I decided to get a dark brown for the leaves, a tan for one of the flowers, and then use some of my leftover white felt for two of the other flowers. Unfortunately, they didn't have the right size straw wreath form, so I found my 18" wreath at Michaels. Overall, the project probably cost me about $10 and took about 2 hours (but part of that might have been my constant distraction of watching Friday Night Lights).

You can do whatever size wreath you want, I just like mine to be a bit bigger for my door, and 18" turned out to be the perfect size.

For the felt sheets, you'll need 1 for the color of your leaves, two for one flower, and four for the other two flowers (or 2 per flower if you do three different colors). You'll also need pins for securing everything to the wreath.

You'll want to cut your fabric into three inch wide strips. I wouldn't cut all of the fabric at first, just cut about 6 or 7 strips and then after putting some on your wreath, cut more as needed. This way, you'll have uncut extra fabric for some other project you may want to use it for. 

Using the pins, pin the end of the fabric on the back of the wreath, at a slight angle, and then start wrapping around the wreath! Just remember to pin each end as you go, overlap it, and pull the fabric tight so it fits snugly to the form. 

Once that's completed, it's time for the felt flowers! You can either freehand everything if you're a master with scissors, or use templates. For my leaves, I decided to do freehand since they're pretty straight forward. I was able to get all six leaves from one felt sheet. If you want more leaves, you'll probably need an extra sheet.

I decided to make myself a template for the flowers because otherwise my perfectionist self would have had to run out for a lot more felt. (This was about my third attempt to get a template I liked, so it's a good thing I decided to do that!) You'll want two big petals, two medium, and two small per flower.

Then you'll fold each petal in half, and then in half again, and pin to the wreath! 

I pinned the two big petals next to each other, and then the medium ones on the other side, and the small ones in the middle. For the two white flowers, since they were on the edge, I made sure the big petals were on the outside edges of the flower cluster. And then I fluffed them so they looked nice and pretty! You can do the flowers with more or less petals or other sizes, it's really all your preference, this is just how I chose to do mine. Then I pinned two leaves under each flower and the wreath was completed!

It definitely brightens up my door!

Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes

Ah spring time. If it wasn't for the thin layer of pollen on everything, I'd really be able to enjoy it. I'm loving the fact that it's finally warm out (not that this past winter was that cold anyways) and it stays light later...which is even more awesome now that I finally have some porch furniture and can sit outside and enjoy it.

Of course, with spring comes a whole new set of baking flavors. For me, fall is all about warm spices, winter is spices and peppermint, and spring and summer are about light fresh flavors...like lemon and blueberry! It's a fantastic combination of fruit, and perfect to put in...cupcakes! One of my best friends just moved back to town and had a housewarming party, so I decided to bake some lemon blueberry cupcakes with lemon cream cheese frosting for her since that recipe has been sitting on my Pinterest board for months just begging to be made.

This recipe made about 16 cupcakes, but it can be give or take a few depending on how much you fill up each cupcake wrapper. You'll want to have the oven at 350, and the pan lined with the liners so the process will be smoother.

Start with 3/4 cup regular all-purpose flour, 3/4 cup cake flour, 1.5 tsp baking powder, and 1/4 tsp salt mixed together in a bowl and set aside.

Then you'll combine 8 tbsp room-temperature butter, 3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar, and the zest of a whole lemon to be mixed together on medium speed for about 2 minutes...just until it's light and fluffy!

 Then add in two eggs (one at a time, and beat about 20 seconds after each addition), plus 1 tsp vanilla extract and 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice.

Once all those ingredients are mixed well together, you'll add in half of the dry ingredients and mix well for a couple minutes, then add 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp milk, mix well, and then add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix until the batter is perfect.

Once the batter is done, in a separate bowl, toss about a cup of fresh blueberries with 2 tbsp flour (this helps them not sink in the cupcake batter as they bake), and then lightly fold the berries into the batter with a spatula.

 Fill the cupcake liners about 3/4 with batter and bake for about 22 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean!

Now for the frosting!!!! I do love a good cream cheese frosting, and with a lemon kick to it? So awesome.

You'll start by beating 8 oz of cream cheese and 5 tbsp room temperature butter for a few minutes until well nice and smooth.

 After you add in the zest from one lemon and a tbsp of fresh lemon juice, mix in 3 cups of confectioner's sugar, one at a time, until you have a good consistency for your frosting. You'll want to beat the frosting for a couple minutes at medium speed to make sure there are no sugar clusters in the frosting.

After frosting the cupcakes, I topped them off with some fresh blueberries!

These were seriously delicious. They were light, fresh, and the lemon flavoring wasn't too powerful, just enough of a sour kick to them. I think my favorite part of these cupcakes had to be when you got a bite with a blueberry (not the ones on top, the ones in the batter) and you get a rush of juiciness in your mouth. It was a refreshing flavor combo that's for sure, and I have a few other lemon-blueberry recipes that will definitely be made in the next couple months!

Peanut Butter Blossoms with Dark Chocolate Kisses

You know what I haven't done in awhile? Bake. I'm not sure why it's been so long, I think it's because I've had a lot of other things to deal with in the last month and just haven't thought about baking. But luckily I planned ahead, and I had all the ingredients for Peanut Butter Blossoms with Dark Chocolate Kisses in my pantry, ready for when I was ready to bake them. And that day was today!

Do you remember those cookies? They're such classics. I remember they used to sell them in travel packs of two and I would take them with my lunch. I would always eat the cookie around the kiss first before eating the chocolate. So good.

When I saw on Bakerella that she made these classic cookies, but with a dark chocolate twist, I knew that I needed to make those. I have a growing addiction to dark chocolate so I figured I couldn't go wrong with them. Plus, they're so simple to make! They're a good way to get back into the baking groove.

First, warm your oven to the classic 350 degrees after setting out a stick of butter to soften.

Then combine 1.5 cups flour, 3/4 tsp baking soda, and 1/2 tsp salt in a small bowl with a whisk. Set aside.

Then take the 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter, and cream with 1 cup of peanut butter. One trick I learned (I assume via Pinterest, I can't remember, but that's a pretty safe bet), is that when working with sticky ingredients like peanut butter, take your measuring cup and run it under hot water for a few seconds. Then dump the water out, but don't dry the cup. Then scoop your ingredient (in this case, peanut butter) into the measuring cup to get the right amount, and then dump it into the mixing bowl. Because of the hot water, it won't stick to the cup and so you won't have to keep scraping to get all the peanut butter out and it'll be easier to clean!

You'll want to cream it for a few minutes on medium speed so they're fully incorporated. Then add in 1 cup sugar and mix until fluffy.

Next up is 1 egg and 2 tsps vanilla extract that you can add at the same time. Then just mix until it's well incorporated.

After that, you add in the flour mixture and mix until well combined!

The dough will be pretty stiff at this point, which is perfect! You'll want to take the dough and roll it into 1 inch balls. Then you'll roll them in granulated sugar before putting them on a parchment lined baking sheet. I was able to fit about 20 cookies on each sheet (for a total of 40 cookies). They don't spread out much, so you can fit plenty to a sheet.

After baking for about 9 minutes, take the cookies out of the oven, and immediately push a dark chocolate Hershey's kiss into the center of the cookie! I unwrapped all the chocolates while the cookies were baking so this was a quick step. 

The cookies were super soft and super tasty! Because I put the chocolate in the cookie while it was warm, it made the kisses really soft. The dark chocolate melds very well with the peanut butter and wasn't overpowering which sometimes dark chocolate can be. These are definitely on the list to make again!

Purse Snatcher

So, I really debated blogging about this...mostly because of the stupid thing I did to cause it. But, since part of this blog is about the adventures I have, this is certainly an adventure worth talking about. Let me start at the beginning.

I went to this large store (I won't name them, even though what happened wasn't their fault), in a town with a reputation for being ridiculously safe, in the middle of the day on a Sunday. I got a cart because I had a lot of stuff to pick up, and I decided to put my purse in the little seat part of the cart. As I went to the workout clothes/pajama area, I walked two feet away from my cart to grab something, not really thinking how absolutely stupid that was.

And then I hear it. I walk back to my cart, look in, confirm that my purse is now gone, and then look up. I didn't see her grab my purse, but I was easily able to pick out who it was because she was walking far too fast. I called out to her as I walk after her, hoping that maybe embarrassing her will get her to stop. All it did was make her take off in a dead sprint. I chase her through the girls clothes section, through the checkout lanes, to the doors (where I tripped, fell, but got up because I wanted my purse back), chased her out into the parking lot and through some cars, through multiple lanes of the lot. I finally caught up to the lady, who lucky for me was wearing a hooded sweatshirt. I grabbed her hood and pulled her back to stop her.

I yelled at her to give me my purse and she kept saying for me to give her my money. Then she said if I didn't give her money, she would get her gun and shoot me. Luckily I had some cash on me, so I told her that I would give her all my cash if she would just give me my purse. Finally she let me get the cash out, she took it from my hand, and took off to her car. After looking at her, I'm pretty sure that drugs and desperation played a huge part because she really wasn't interested in anything but my cash, and what I had really wasn't much. Someone called the police, and I told them everything. I doubt they'll catch her, and since she only got my cash, it's probably a low priority for them, but it was still pretty crazy.

So that's the story. Now here are a few things to learn from it:

• DON'T LEAVE YOUR PURSE IN YOUR CART. It's common sense, I know. And I had a momentary lapse in it. NEVER doing that again. It was very stupid of me.
• You really should NOT run after someone who steals from you. I got very lucky in my situation, and I only chased after her because it was pure instinct when she started running. I also really didn't think she would get out of the store and that someone would stop her. I wasn't trying to take a stand or anything and make a statement about not being a victim. After it all happened, I just thought, that was SO stupid. You really shouldn't chase these people because you never know what could happen. She could have legitimately had a gun, or a knife, or could have punched the mess out of me. 
• In line with this, don't praise me in front of your kids. I get that what I did was pretty awesome or whatever, but don't encourage the same action in your children!
• If you see someone chasing someone through the store, yelling "STOP HER SHE HAS MY PURSE," then you should consider helping them. If you're too far away from the situation, okay, there's nothing you can do. If you're an employee, I know you're trained not to do anything, so okay. But if you are someone who is in our path, who sees us running towards you, who hears me yelling, who I make eye contact with, DO SOMETHING. Don't just stand there looking like an idiot.
  
  I could probably count about five people I looked straight in the eye and tried to get them to help me, and they didn't. Yes, I get that kind of goes against what I said above, but it is a little absurd that everyone just stood by and did nothing, especially when they had carts they could have easily pushed into her. I probably could have forgiven that if someone had even come up to me out in the parking lot to see if I was okay after the woman took off. I sat on the curb for a good few minutes, and I know people in the parking lot, in that lane, saw me. Yet not one person even came up to me to see if I was okay. They just kept walking by like nothing happened. I just think it's one of those common decency things that clearly nobody at this store had that day.
  
  I did eventually have people ask me if I was okay and if I got my purse back once I was back in the store, and they clearly were people who were not in any real position to help, but it really didn't make up for it. I get that the area is really desensitized to crime, but it's one of those things where if I had seen it happen, and I was close to it, I don't know how I could have ignored it like that.
• If (and I hope that's never) this happens to you, immediately write down everything you can think of about the person and what happened. I know that's criminology 101, and I know in this situation nothing will probably come of it, but it's always something good to remember. 

It was definitely one of the craziest, stupidest, most badass things I have ever done (almost beating skydiving). And I have a nice bruise on my arm (from what part of that, I'm not sure) to show for it. So it definitely made my weekend a little fun! I probably wouldn't be laughing about it had it turned out differently, but I most definitely got very lucky. 

Thanks to Tyler for this fun meme! 

Vote Against Project

I typically don't like to get political on my blog; I save my opinions on those topics for other mediums. My blog has mostly been about what I bake, what I craft, what I read, and random fun things I do (even though I haven't been doing too much lately...I'm working on that). However, when North Carolina's legislature decided to put an amendment on the May 8th ballot to define marriage as one between a man and a woman, I became offended, and knew I needed to speak out in some way.

I am offended that my state would be so closed minded, offended by the discrimination, and offended that my state would be okay with limiting benefits to not only same-sex couples, but heterosexual domestic partnerships and civil unions as well.

I believe that every single person, no matter what, should have equal rights and privileges. Even though I personally plan to marry a man one day, I still strongly believe there is absolutely no reason everyone should not be allowed those same rights that me and my husband will automatically receive just because we're a man and a woman, and just because we chose to marry.

I don't understand why people think allowing these rights for everyone will damage the marriage they personally have, or that it will even affect their life in any way, to the point where they fight to deny and prevent these rights by putting this amendment in our constitution. I read a great quote the other day by someone after Prop 8 in California was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that said "Giving someone else equal rights does not infringe or take away rights from you. It just makes it illegal to enforce your prejudice and hate. It's that simple."

This is not a partisan issue. It is a human rights issue, a fairness issue, an acceptance issue. What are we without equality, without acceptance, without openness? Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but I truly believe that your opinion shouldn't affect allowing others to have basic human rights some of us are or will be lucky enough to receive without question.

Some people out there do not have the full story. They do not understand the full implications of what this constitutional amendment will do if passed. It is not just about potentially disallowing same-sex marriages (which we should allow them, and hopefully will at some point). Here is a good link to the Coalition to Protect NC Families that will give you the full scope: http://www.protectncfamilies.org/issues.

With this amendment on the ballot, a friend of mine, Curtis Brown, decided to do something about it. He gathered a team together, and began the Vote Against Project.




The project is taking them all across North Carolina as they take pictures of North Carolinians and others who are against this amendment being added to our constitution.

When it comes to a vote like this, awareness is the most important thing, especially with it being on the ballot on May 8th, and not a typical high-turnout election time like November. Most people don't tend to show up for primaries it seems, but at least it won't just be about the Republican presidential candidate anymore, now that the governor's race is wide open here. This project is for bringing awareness about the amendment as well as providing a constant reminder of when the vote will occur so everyone can go out and Vote Against.

I went to the photo shoot on January 26th at Busy Bee in downtown Raleigh with my friend Katie. The thing I noticed the most was the complete happiness in the whole room. Everyone I encountered believes wholeheartedly in what they are doing and are so happy to see so many people agree with them and be willing to put up a fight against injustices. Everyone involved in the project, from the team to the volunteers, were just plain awesome and the reason I'm sure this project will be successful.

So if you haven't already, go to the Vote Against website: www.voteagainst.org. They have multiple tour dates, so find the one closest to you. Get your picture taken. Put it as your Facebook profile picture (which I did), your Twitter picture (which I have), your Google+ photo (done and done), and if you have a blog, blog about it (you're reading it!). And remember on May 8th to vote AGAINST the amendment. You'll be presented with the choice to choose "For" or "Against", so make sure you choose AGAINST.