NEW CHOPPED HAIRCUT

A couple of weeks ago I decided I had enough of trying to grow my hair out and went back to brunette with a cute chop!  I've had literally every hairstyle you can have from a number one buzz cut to a ridiculously long, one length mane so nothing scares me in the hairdresser's chair.  I have residency interviews in the next couple of weeks so it seemed like a good time to get the ol' hair did.

In the meantime, I have extra time off while I wait for these interviews so I'm tackling the spare bedroom (our dirty little secret, you may remember).  I painted the walls last week and today I spent my first day off painting the ceiling and trim.  While I was at it I figured, why not paint the hallway between our bathroom and bedroom?  It's teeny tiny and only took a little extra time.  I just painted the hallway white to make it a bit cleaner and get rid of the last trace of beige from our upstairs.  Beige.  Shudder.

I got quite excited today when I went on the West Elm website and saw free shipping and an extra 30% off at checkout - one day only.  I loaded up my shopping cart with new bedding for the spare room (shhhh!) and then there was nowhere to type in the promo code!  Not available for us in the great white north.  Don't you hate that?!  Probably for the best, anyway.  Quite disappointing, really, so I pinned it all to my Pinterest wishlist hoping some day someone will take pity on me and give it to me as a gift!  How is it possible to want so much stuff?!  Christmas just finished (took down the tree yesterday, Jan 19th) and my birthday's not till September!! ;)  So in other words, the "after" photos might not make it to the blog for awhile.

And back to the haircut...here's a photo from last week wearing my work attire.  Quite proud of the use I've been getting out of my new curling iron just adding a little wave!

 

Shoes - Aldo.  Necklace - Olivia Welles via HauteLook.  T shirt - Top Shop, old. Similar here.  Skirt - J Crew, old. Similar here.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014

Hello, world!  Happy New Year!  I can't believe the holidays have come and gone and I miss Christmas like you wouldn't believe.  So much that today, January 17th, my Christmas tree is still up and looks just as beautiful as it did four weeks ago... for the most part!

I just went through my photos and thought I'd give you an update of our Christmas through a photo recap.  First of all, the three of us did a lot of cuddling (and after Christmas most of the cuddling took place while watching Downton Abbey - or "going to Downton" as we call it in this house).

We hosted a dinner party for four and I tried my hand at baking fruit tarts with custard.  Not too shabby.  The pears really made the dessert.

Next, we had our own "Christmas morning" together the three of us on December 23rd before heading up river to the in laws' and eventually my family's on Christmas night.  I don't care what you say, Leroy understands everything.  Hubby and I were getting ready to open stockings, I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth and literally Leroy (on his own) went into the living room and lay down beside his stocking.  He totally gets it.  Totally.

Around that same time, the 23rd or so, we had a big ice storm that resulted in the neighbour's tree falling down into our yard.  We were nervous to leave the house to visit family because we weren't sure if the power would stay on.  Turned out our house was fine, but many in the area lost power for days.

Then we spent a few days at my parents' house with the siblings.  Sister, hubby, and I played a friendly game of Life.  (I won... as per usual... not competitive or anything.)  And why is it in that game you end up with soooo many children!?  And whyyyy do they force you to buy a more expensive house when you're Game of Life middle aged?!

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and wish you a happy, healthy, and exciting (in a good way) new year!  We have dubbed 2014 "the year of the resident" but as one of my classmates pointed out, "the year of the paycheque" is just so much nicer! ;)

CHRISTMAS TREATS

You know I like to bake, right?  It's not super obvious, is it?

Did you also know I just bought some personal training sessions and I am very much on the wagon?  That's right...hopped on at the most difficult time to be "good".  Christmas time.  Oh, the horror.  And considering my love of baking, it seems so much worse.

My solution has been to bake a number of Christmas goodies and give them away!  Hubby is shocked and appalled but it's really the best fix, I think.  So I made a few things this year (my mom's version of Oh Henry Bars - really  nothing like the chocolate bar, Peppermint Macarons, my aunt T's Bailey's Fudge - crazy good, Coconut Chocolates, and Pecan Snowball Cookies) and most of them are packaged up to go!  My mom gave me really cute Christmas treat boxes last year so I used those and bought these adorable little dishes from Michaels (pictured below).  They were literally $2 each.  AMAZING!

I just kept a few things so hubby can snack on them over the holidays.  So I was able to bake, hubby gets a few treats, and treats for friends!  I'm pretty happy about this (although don't get me wrong, I would way rather be eating those sweets)!

I used the Christmas gift tags I bought on Etsy, tissue paper, and ribbon to package up some of the sweets.

They look good, right?  I tried one (really, only one) of the Coconut Chocolates because I had never made them before and they were so good!!  The graham cracker square you're seeing is our version of the Oh Henry Bar.  I'm really not sure why we call it that because there are no peanuts or caramel.  They simply consist of graham wafers, chocolate, butter, brown sugar, and graham cracker crumbs.  Really easy and hubby's favourite Christmas treat that my family makes.

Can I just say I'm really proud of this photo?  I never feel like my photos are very good and this one with the tree in the background out of focus looking so amazing is such a happy accident. *Ahem* I mean photography skill... ;)

And aren't those little dishes from Michaels so great?  Really - $2.  I only bought two but I probably should have bought fifteen.

Merry Christmas!  I just can't stop saying it.

CHRISTMAS WRAPPING

This year I decided to do something a little different.  The last two Christmases I bought wrapping paper at Costco and boy, was it inexpensive.  Not only that, it was pretty good quality, too.  Nice and thick so it didn't tear easily while you were wrapping.  I wanted to do something a bit more pretty and creative this time around so I bought a few items on Etsy including:

1. Aspen Frost patterned paint roller and applicator from NotWallpaper
2. Medium white scalloped gift tags from Catch Some Raes
3. Large red scalloped gift tags from Catch Some Raes
4. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas stamp from Creatiate
5. White poinsettia on red Christmas washi tape from LaZoie
6. Light gold glitter washi tape from LaZoie
7. Black ribbon on sale from Michaels
8. Stamp pad and paint from Michaels
9. Craft paper from Wal Mart or the like
Also loving this washi tape and this washi tape

You could call it "variations of a theme", really.  I used those basic staples for all of the presents and no two are exactly alike.  Some are completely printed with the Aspen Frost roller, some just have a strip.  Some have black ribbon, some red, some none.  Multicolour washi tape and one of two tags, you get the idea.  I think they're pretty exciting because they're unique, fun, and a little bit creative.  Hubby was a bit horrified that I bought a paint roller for $50 with shipping and handling.  He can't quite seem to get past that to enjoy the spirit of Christmas wrapping... Frivolous, he says.  Men. ;)

And in case you're wondering, our tree skirt is actually two fur "rugs" from Wal Mart.  You can find them in the section with bathroom things and rugs.  They come in all different colours (lots of neon, actually) and I have two wrapped around the bottom of my tree.

Merry Christmas!

MY FIRST TRY AT MACARONS

Hello, Christmas lovers everywhere!

This has been a very cold and snowy weekend so after church this morning we've been snowed in at home.  I spent the day trying my hand at the French pastry known as macarons.  This was my most difficult baking project to date, as far as I can remember.  I wanted to share my tips from this baking adventure!

I used this recipe from studiodiy.com.

My attempt certainly wasn't perfect (I threw out 3 pans of macarons) but the cookie sheet that didn't overcook was pretty good for a first attempt, I think!

First of all, to translate the measurements from the studiodiy recipe.  They list the ingredients in grams so I'll pass on the wisdom of the internet to you all in case you're like me and don't own a kitchen scale.

200 grams of icing sugar = 1.6 cups
200 grams of almond meal = 1.8 cups
80 g egg whites = whites from 3 eggs
200 g granulated sugar = 1 cup

The next tip?  I tried to make almond flour myself from whole almonds.  Hubby did the grocery shopping and didn't put his full effort into finding almond meal at Bulk Barn (they have it and I went back for it later).  In theory, almond meal/flour is simply ground almonds.  You just grind the almonds in a food processor and then use a sifter so it's a fine consistency.  The issue I ran into was if you grind the almonds too much they become a paste.  However, if you don't grind them enough, they're really quite big pieces and that doesn't work either.  When I went back to Bulk Barn I found they had almond meal that was much finer than I could get it on my own, so I just bought it.  Definitely the way to go, in my opinion.

I would have made the macarons slightly thicker, as well, when applying the batter to the cookie sheet.  The cookies aren't too thin, but I would have liked them to be a little bit thicker, I think.

My oven and I are constantly waging war against each other, in case you didn't know.  It is a very difficult oven to work with!!!  The longer it's on, the hotter it gets.  I mean, only the first sheet of cookies comes out right.  After the first pan I have to turn the temperature down and bake for less time, and everything still seems to burn.  That was the issue with these.  It seemed like there was a very fine balance.  They are very delicate pastries so being slightly brown on the bottom makes them too hard and just not right.  As always, the first pan out turned out fine.  *Dreaming of a convection oven.*

If you're planning on using candy cane pieces (or anything else) for embellishment, you have to make sure the buttercream frosting is layered on quite thick so it can pick up the pieces of candy.  It's best to squeeze a big dollop into the centre of the macaron.  I squiggled the frosting around (technical term) at first and when you pushed the cookies together, you could tell it had been kind of messy and squiggly.

And that brings me to my last tip.  When you press the cookies together, hold them by the edges.  If you push from the centres, the macarons will crack and collapse.  They really are delicate little guys.  (Lesson learned.)

So it wasn't a complete home run, but successful enough that I will definitely make macarons again.  And this time I'll have a little experience under my belt so they should turn out even better!