Back in Bham!

Right now, I'm sitting at an island in Colton's kitchen, listening to the sounds of a jam session floating up from the basement. (All of Colton's siblings and friends are absurdly talented.)

It's Colton's birthday!!! I already gave him the bulk of his present... a set of 15 photography books, which will hopefully be helpful to refer back to once he's a brilliant cinematographer. (Well... not that he isn't already. But once he's known as such.) I need to come up with something else quick though! I'm working on a little song for him, but I'm not quite done yet. Maybe I'll just make him a sappy little card before tonight.

The poor  dear has an infection spreading from his toe all the way up his shin... I took him to the ER the other night, right after wrap (of the film he was shooting). He's on antibiotics now, so hopefully it'll get better soon. He's hobbling around a little for the moment, though :)

 I technically forgot to bring my camera this go around, so no pictures! But I'm hopefully gonna meet up with April for lunch one day, and she's gonna give me the photo cd I left at her place, so I can post a few more photos from last time.

 I hope you guys are having a lovely week!!!

Dress Giveaway...

Hey! I don't know if any of you follow Maggie at Lifesize Paperdoll , but she just posted an amazing giveaway of not one or two, but FIVE adorable dresses and rompers. Signing up is easy! If you're interested, just go to her blog and become a follower, then leave your email address, name, and a secret :)

Have a great day!

(Ps, I might be working on a film that Colton's shooting this weekend. Hurray!)

Back from Space (or Birmingham, rather...)

Man, oh Man!
It's been forever, huh? I'll try to make this an extra good one to make up for it :)

First on the docket: I have been listening to The Grecian Urns album NONSTOP. I absolutely adore it. The Grecian Urns are led by Bryce, who happens to be one of Colton's best friends. (And my own.) He also has a band at school, which Colton and I are in, called the Little Foxes, and we play alot of the same songs. They're better, though. Especially when Colton goes down to Florida to play with them :)
They're not signed... they recorded the album in the Norris's basement, and they're playing a little tour of about twelve shows. If you have a spare $9.90, then you should DEFINITELY go to itunes and buy their album. It's called Lovedream. I promise, promise, promise you won't regret it! They have a great sound... something I would call Indie Florida Soul Groove :)

Here are two of my favorite songs for your enjoyment! The video might take a few minutes to load, so feel free to scroll down to the other stuff and come back.

ps, Colton took all the black and white photos :)

In other news, I had an absolutely fantastic trip to Birmingham! Here are some pictures I took as documentation (minus a roll, which I accidentally left at April's...)

We went to a petting zoo one morning! We made friends with this pony.

This little guy was my favorite. I have such a thing for donkeys. He was so sweet :)

I was a little scared that this peacock was gonna peck me, so I kept my distance :)

April and I had a lot of cooking adventures. This one didn't turn out so well. That's supposed to be bacon for our picnic potato salad. Good thing we had some extra, huh?

One night, we went to Firebirds for dinner. I had an out-of-this-world salad with lime-cilantro vinagerette topped with the best crab cakes I've ever tasted. Yum-o!

Doesn't she look pretty?

We also made the quintessential SnoBiz stop. Passionfruit Strawberry and Guava Pinapple Coconut.

(Ps, those are legs, not fingers.)

Next we went to the art museum!

We think this guy looks like he's going to puke in the Ewer. (This is from the Beeson's crazy enormous Wedgewood collection. I mean, really. Who needs that many dishes?)

Our homemade Mushroom Ravioli. Looks delish, eh?

Over the week, we made:

Bruschetta, Corn and Poblano soup, Curry chicken salad, Potato salad with bacon, Pasta, Frozen Strawberry Lemonade, Salsa, French Toast, Peanut butter cup cookies, Chocolate ice cream with strawberries and Toasted Almonds... and probably a few other things that I can't remember at the moment.

It sure did take a long time, though! Almost three hours, altogether. I think it'd be easier to use a pasta maker instead of a rolling pin :)

And we had a bit of an oops... April decided that sticking her spoon in the blender to stir the filling would be okay. The blender decided her spoon looked tasty. We had to chew carefully :)

Then off to the Davie's!!! What sweet brothers they are :)

Nice jump, Colton. (He did a flip, not a belly flop... I just pressed the shutter a little early.)

Beautiful sister Alexandra!

Playing Hide and Seek with Jay...

Hiding from Lucy

They really are so sweet.

And Jay LOVES to spin.

We also went to the Lewis farm (Mrs. Davie's side of the family) to celebrate Mimi's birthday. Which included watermelon and my first ride on a four wheeler!

This is Grayson, one of the cousins. He's sooo funny! He has this great little country accent.

Siblings :)

The Davie kids are: (from oldest to youngest) Colton, Luke, Vitalik, Alexandra, Vicka, Roman, and Jaylen. Vitalik, Vicka, Roman, and Jaylen were all adopted recently! (Well, from a couple of years ago to a few months ago. Vicka still can't speak english yet, but she's working on it!)

Vitalik and Allan, who is Mrs. Davie's stepfather. He's an excellent watermelon carver.

Colton found this scooter and immediately started zooming around everywhere :)

And finally, the new baby! Just three weeks old, adopted by Colton's aunt and uncle.  We all had fun holding and feeding him.

So that was my week in Birmingham! Once I get that other roll back from April, I may put up a few more of my favorites. I hope that all of you ladies had an equally wonderful week :)

Thursday Thursday, it is Thursday, Hey!

Hey, look! Becca tagged me in this whatever it is. April says I'm supposed to post five things about myself, and so here we go.

1) I've had pica since I was a kiddo. (Well. I'm self diagnosed. But I don't see any other reason that I would have these cravings if I didn't, unless I'm just a world class weirdo.) In case you don't know what that means, pica is a disorder in which someone regularly eats non-food items. I always liked rubber based things, like erasers, glue, and rubber cement (which you really shouldn't eat, by the way...). Also playdough, string, paper, lollipop sticks, and an assortment of backyard plants. I now realize that this behavior is socially unacceptable, so I don't eat anything like that anymore :)
(But honestly... it still tastes the same.)

2) I'm really bad at song lyrics. I can't understand/hear them half the time, and even if I do, I can't remember them while I sing. I just make stuff up. This can pose a problem sometimes. The other day, I wanted my college minister's wife to hear Vampire Weekend, which is a pretty fantastic band. Unfortunately, I decided to post a video of Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa, which *used* to be my favorite song by them. But after I hit "Send", I understood the lyrics for the first time. Not good!!! The chorus goes something along the lines of "Do you want to f*** like you know I do? Like you know I do-oooooh-oooooooh-oooooooh-oooooooh?" Thank goodness I deleted it before she listened :)

3) I love to swim, but I'm not very good at it. I wore water wings until I 12, and then took YMCA swim lessons. Everyone else in the class was three or four.

4) I love, love, love buying clothes at goodwill, the samaritan center, etc. For one thing, I'm poor. For another, I have an insatiable fondness for high-waisted, pleated shorts. I have recently realized that the back view is perhaps not the most flattering for the derriere, but there's just something about them that I can't resist.

5) I used to wish I was either asian (because I was looking through this book of haircuts when I was a kid and stumbled upon this radical variation of a bowl cut. I begged my mother to cut my hair like that, but she said that cut only worked on people with stick-straight hair.) or American Indian. (because I had a Hiawatha book, and I had quite the crush on Hiawatha.)



So that's me!
By the way, I'm at April's for the week!!! It's been wonderful. I'll blog about it soon, and I have pictures to post :)

A Paula Deen Kind of Wednesday

Lately, I've been watching a lot of cooking shows. I especially like The Barefoot Contessa, The Neely's, and Paula Deen. I like to cook, and it makes me happy to watch other people who like to cook. Besides, Ina is really calming, the Neely's have this great energy and are constantly bantering, and we all know that Paula is adorable. "I'm in the kitchen with Bobby, Ya'll!!!"

I felt like a sweet treat, and so I started hunting for a good new recipe. I decided that I had a hankering for some cheesecake, but alas! I don't have a spring form pan. But then I found the answer -- Paula's Cheesecake Cookies. They have the taste of cheesecake but the ease of cookies! (They're not really cookies, though... more like bars.)

Here's what you need:

Crust:

1 Cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup light brown sugar

1 cup chopped pecans

(But I used a cup of graham cracker crumbs instead, because my momma can't eat nuts)

1 stick butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 350. Combine all ingredients in a bowl. I stirred the flour into the butter with a spoon, but then mixed in the crumbs and sugar with my hands. (Make sure to take off any rings! It's pretty messy.)

Once it's a crumbly paste, press the mixture into an ungreased 9x13 pan. Pop it into the oven for about 12 minutes. It'll smell divine.

Here's what mine looked like when it was done.

What you need for the filling:

2 (8 ounce) packages of cream cheese, softened

(I used reduced fat, and it set up just fine)

1 cup granulated sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

(I added a little splash of almond, too!)

Beat the cream cheese and slowly add sugar until smooth. Add eggs and extract and beat it some more. My batter was unfortunately plauged by the widely feared vanilla monster, who was unhappy seeing as how he could sense I was about to put him in the oven.

Once it's nice and smooth, pour your batter over the crust and bake it for 20 minutes. Cool completely. (That's the hardest part... it felt like eons!)

Once it was cool, I decided to put some rasberries on top of mine. I bet it'd also be great with a chocolate or caramel glaze, or any kind of fruit. Mm! I would also suggest chilling it for a while before you try to cut it, so it doesn't get too sticky.

Man, oh man!!!

In other news, I did a watercolor version of my drawing of Colton. I'm pleased, although the scan doesn't do it justice :)

What are some of your favorite new recipes?

Holy Breakfast, Batman!!!

I just had the best breakfast of the summer.





I was planning on just having a cup of joe... I made some with the beans Mommy got on her trip to Gatlinburg. Highlander Grogg, or something... it's delish. Nice and dark with rum and vanilla flavors!




But anyway, I was lounging on the couch watching Dirty Jobs (one of my favorites), and Mommy poked her head in and said, "Do you want some breakfast?" and I said, "I dunno... what are you going to have?" "Maybe some oatmeal".




I thought to myself I might have some oatmeal too, because that sounded pretty tasty.



But then! She poked her head back in and said, "I going to make a german pancake with fresh peaches on top. Do you want some bacon and an egg too?"



Yes, please.




Needless to say, it was absolutely delicious. I sprinkled some powdered sugar on top, and man. Those peaches were just to die for.





Also, I've been in a slight funk lately... Just a little cabin fever-y, because I don't really know anyone in Chattanooga except for Cassie, and she works every day but the weekend. And I miss Colton. But while I was talking to him on the phone, he encouraged me to make something when I was feeling lonely. (What a smart boy.) When I feel listless, I usually don't feel very inspired, but once I start, I immediately perk up. Here are a few things I've made recently:

(Note, all the metal used (except the earwires) is recycled! Mainly old coins I hammer in the backyard, and a wire basket I found and unwove.)

Colton! I had trouble on his mouth. I may or may not add watercolors.

(ps, do any of you have an etsy account? I was thinking about starting one to sell jewelry, but I don't know if anybody would actually buy any. Is it pretty user friendly?)

Fill in the Blank Friday!

I'm following the leads of Lauren (http://thelittlethingswedo.blogspot.com) and my lovely sister (http://markandaprilskinner.blogspot.com) Here we go!



1) If I could choose my last meal it would be mashed redskinned potatoes (and/or) crispy potato skins with barbecue on top, sauteed mushrooms, perfectly tendercrisp asparagus, grilled salmon, WHOLE milk, and homemede cinnamon swirl sourdough for dessert :)

2) My favorite person to share a meal with is My mom and sister April (and possibly Colton too) because they appreciate good food just as much as I do. And we talk and laugh the entire meal, which makes everything taste that much better. And Colton's just so darn cute.

3) The best meal I've ever had was a sandwich I ate while I was hiking. It was just ham and provolone on wheat bread (no crust), but I had been going uphill for at least two hours and was totally ravenous when we perched on a big rock for a lunch break. That sandwich tasted like a dream :)

4) The one food that makes me feel instantly better if I'm having a bad day is buttered bread. I just love carbs. Ice cream would do, too... especially Ben and Jerry's cinnamon bun, or Haagen Dazs (Man. How in the world do you spell that?) Dulce de Leche. Or straight up whipped cream

5) My absolute specialty in the kitchen is key lime pie. It's the best recipe I've ever tasted! I cooked some pretty kick butt pasta the other night, though... fettucini in a lemon parmesan sauce topped with asparagus and seared scallops... mmm!!!

6) The city that has the best food is hmm, that's a hard one. I've really not done that much traveling, but I'd have to go with Hilton Head/ Savannah. There's some out of this world seafood there. And my favorite restaurant there is The Pirate's Cove (?) I had swordfish there for the first time, and it was to die for. Also, I seem to remember them having good she-crab soup, but I could have it mixed up with another place... alot of the seafood places sortof ran together in my head. But there's also the plus of them having interesting pirate-y history.

7) My favorite healthy snack is granny smith apples with peanut butter, honey, and rice crispies stuck to it. (I know the cereal part sounds weird, but it adds such a delicious crunch!) I also really like fresh smoothies. I had one yesterday with banana, strawberry, lime, and fresh mint. No sugar added! It was delicious.

8) In my opinion the nationality which has the best food is Asian. I can't get enough Thai, and I also love chinese, japanese, and sushi.

9) If I could learn to cook anything in the world (and be really good at it!) I'd choose homemade pasta. I'm going to attempt it soon! It's impressive and delicious. Also, I'd love to make creme brulee, and torch the sugar and everything, but I think that'd be really bad for my cholesterol, because I'd probably make it once a week :)

10) The most outrageous dessert I've ever had was chocolate bread pudding at Chez LuLu's in Birmingham. I mean goodness gracious! It was delicious.


Well that made me really hungry. I'm going to go drink some morning coffee and snack on french bread toast. See ya!