i phone

as many of you know, i long for an i-phone but will not give up my free verizon service.  (thanks lisa and pa-thug!)  however, my need for an i-phone just grew to a large gaping hole in my soul.

today i got an e-mail from kate spade telling me taunting me with their new i-phone app.

are you in love? because i am.  hopefully alex has already downloaded it (its free! my early chanukah and christmas gift to you fine reader with an i-phone/i-touch)

let me know how it works out.  i can be reached on my second generation motorola razor...

thanksgiving cooking

last night alex made some delicious cupcakes... hopefully she will post about them soon.  if you follow her on twitter you saw the pic of JC loving a pumpkin cupcake.


at my house lisa (with my help) made hot chocolate cupcakes!  her cowoker at work loved hot chocolate and its her birthday.  we are waiting to eat the extras until k-dawg and grandma and grandpa get here!

 

got the recipe from CUPCAKES GALORE by Gail Wagman  (it was a birthday present from MLF!!)

girls weekend

its just me and lisa at home this weekend.  pa-thug and k-dawg have gone camping with the boy scouts.  Poor pa-thug.

tonight we are having buffalo chicken dip.  in college alex and i used to make this on tuesdays and get a 1.5l of sauvignon blanc.  this was not only classy but good on the waist line.

i am currently boiling the chicken and only wish lisa would let me drink a bottle or two of wine... i guess a gimlet will do!!!

recipe for buffalo chicken dip
1 pkg neufchatel cream cheese (low fat cream cheese)
1 can of chunked chicken (this grosses me out to no end so i boil chicken breast and shred them myself)
hot sauce (tonight we are using franks red-hot wing sauce)
cheddar cheese
blue cheese dressing

(if you have ever made sky-line dip (ohio people!!!) or chilli dip the prep will be familar)

decide if you want to cook in the oven or in the microwave (i always choose oven but its up to you!) if you choose oven turn to 350 and pre-heat!

take a glass dish such as a pie dish or a 9x13 (again this is your call) glass dish and spread the cream cheese on the bottom.
poor blue cheese dressing to cover all of the cream cheese
in a bowl put the chicken and put in hot sauce to taste (if you like heat add more!! with all the dairy do not be afraid to coat the chicken well!)
dump the chicken on top of the blue cheese
top generously with shredded cheddar cheese.

place in over and cook for 10 min until all cheese is melted or microwave (covered) for 5 min increments until cheese is melted. eat with chips!!!!

a picture will follow after we are done! (i told you i would add picutres!!)

Kiehl's love

as you know by now i have a few obsessions in life.  one being kiehl's.  a few weeks ago i won a contest hosted by them on twitter @kiehlsNYC (they are always having contests so you should follow them!!  (make sure you are also following alex marie @achauss and i @anne_mariehugh!)
as my prize i was able to pick of one their new Acai Damage-Repairing products for FREE!!!

i picked the Açaí Damage-Repairing Serum.  lisa (my mom) and i have been using it inconsistently over the past 2 weeks and i must say i am very impressed!!!  she used it first as i am so careful about what i put on my skin and wanted to have nice skin for my visit to see MLF.

she was v. put off by the sent at first but has grown to love the product.  i did not really mind the sent that much (years of using any and every acne medication will do that to you).  we both started wearing it at night and i have moved to putting it on after my shower in the morning (i use my acne topical cream at night).  this morning i was so pleasantly surprised at how most of the red bloch-y-ness was missing from my face.

i must admit that i was bracing myself for something completely different.  when i heard this was an antioxidant i was prepared for a serious breakout as all my impurities where drawn from my face.  how wrong i was.  i have not experience a breakout at all and i have less blackheads!!

As for lisa she is now a huge kiehl's fan and keeps asking for that stuff that smells and has noticed smaller pores.  She has also started using my second ever kiehl's purchase Over-Night Biological Peel and is very happy with the results!

just in

i just got my last birthday present from the ups man!  oh how i love him and his little gifts.

(they are all actually from lisa and pa-thug)

a patagonia full-zip re-tool jacket and i have one word: LOVE

fall spruse up!

lisa took me to bed bath and beyond armed with a fist full of 20% off coupons and a mission: to make my nook of the house tolerable.  i think it was a success!

i have looked at the website but cannot seem to find my purchases.  First i got a set of 10 plastic shoe boxes.  these are life changing and i suggest you go buy them now!  they were only like $8.99 plus the 20% off!!! 

Second we got these mesh cubes.  you can create them anyway you want and they were like 18.99 plus 20% off!  lisa is picking up another one of the metal build-able cubes.  the green thing is going to be a great catch all for just putting things down before filing them away in their place.  (you can also see my new cupcake cook book and kate spade style!!) while this is nothing too classy it makes my nook so much more bearable.  hopefully we will move into a real house soon!!!!

here is a picture of the ceramic squirrel candy dish my mom and dad got me for my birthday!  the candy is from them and from my good friend holly!  yummy!!!!

i guess you can also see my love of kiehl's in this!!!

to yoga or not to yoga

time has come my friends for a change. what that change is i am not certain. having made the giant leap back to school i have decided that i need to improve my life in more ways. engaging my mind everyday had made me realize that to be the best person i can bee i need to do more.

my whole life leading up to college i exercised methodically. but it was not exercise it was passion, fun, enjoyment. I have yet to find that in another sport. while i have tried to make running my passion it is nothing compared to pushing myself in the pool.

i think i am going to try yoga. while i find it extremely intimidating i think that making that jump and pushing myself into something so foreign will be a healthy exercise in expanding my horizons. my cousin MW swears it changed her life. i could use a life change!

now all i have to do is work up the courage to actually do it. BIG STEP. i don't know what it is. insecurity perhaps. i can not attend a class. i do videos at home even get Lisa to them with me; but walking into a studio paralyzes me. I can not even bring myself to attend a class at ODU.

in a step to overcome my fear i am purchasing this from lululemon! then i will go to class next week. promise!

until then its spinning for me! Happy Friday!!!

kooking with k-dawg

today k-dawg and i are making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. yummy!!

while i do love my brother very much he is v. strange and has some odd quirks. First, he refers to lisa as "my mom" eventhough she gave birth to ajh and i and is currently mother to all 3 of us. Secondly, if he believes that something was done one way once he has to do it the same every time (pronounced EB-er-RE TIME). one might call this obsessive compulsive, and one might be correct. thus we made a new recipe for oatmeal chocolate chip raisin cookies on a metal jelly roll pan.

oatmeal cookies are a family staple. we always make the vanishing oatmeal cookies from Quaker Oats they are amazing and perfect. K-dawg is convinced that lisa makes the recipe on the back of the Toll House Chocolate Chip bag. she does not and i am sure of it. she might make the regular chocolate chip cookies from there but NOT the oatmeal ones. they are very different and the milk in the Toll House recipe plumps the oatmeal and sort of conceals it. good for the non oatmeal lovers. BAD FOR ME!

as for the metal jelly roll pan apparently lisa uses it. i think this was a lie on his part and when he goes outside to play and i am switching back to the cooking stone (better cookie bottom).


all in all my time spent with k-dawg was productive and we ended it on happy terms with cookies for lisa and thug when they return from work. I give it an A+!

yummy yummy

tonight in honor of the downpour and the fact that will it not let up until Friday lisa and i made wedding soup. this is my favorite thing and i disregard my gluten intolerance to eat vats of it. that's what my very own super secret recipe makes!

i love fall/winter/early spring because in all of them you can enjoy this broth-y meatball-y bliss. this time we subsutited regular meatballs for the trader joe's turkey ones. they are a bit bigger but taste the same!!!

picture will be up tomorrow! recipe will not follow sorry. its for the cookbook!