Raaaawrr. Raaaaawwrrr. RAAAAWWWWRR. RRRAAAAAAAWWWWWWRRRRRRR!

LET THE WILD RUMPUS BEGIN!

Of waffles and other peaceful things...

It's Saturday morning, rainy and blustery. Perfect autumn weather, if you ask us. We just finished our weekend morning tradition of homemade waffles and now our bellies are full and we're ready for the day. Saturdays are my favorite. We can sleep as long as we want, which I'll admit isn't even that long in most people's books, but at least it's not 6am. When we do wake up, we can take as long as we want to stretch and relax and drowse, talking lazily with each other until the growl of our stomachs can no longer be ignored, at which point we get up and start breakfast together in the kitchen. It's the same routine every Saturday - two bowls, Isaac with his wheat flour, me with my assortment of teff, quinoa, and brown rice flours. I grind the flax seeds for both of us, Isaac melts our honey and butter together on the stove. I retrieve the baking powder, cinnamon, and salt from the cupboard while Isaac collects the wet ingredients from the fridge. We each take care of our respective bowls, but have done this every week for the past year that it's become so familiar, we could do it with our eyes closed and never miss a beat. I tell Isaac he can pour his waffle first, but he never does. Ever the gentleman. As my waffle cooks, I pick out the berries that sound the best so we can start their melting process. Once I'm happily preparing my perfectly toasted waffle, Isaac pours his and lets me start eating mine while it's still hot. It's the sign that the weekend has come, that today is going to be a good day, that the world is going to be alright.

I love Saturdays.

Soon...

I'll be back. Soon.

Don't worry.

Baby cakes...

Ummm, so I have to show you how the cake turned out last night. I should start with a little history first, though. I am a baker at heart. I love, love, love to bake. I love to bake like Isaac loves to cook, and that's saying something. I am also incredibly impulsive when it comes to life in general. I believe I've blogged about this before, but when I decide to cut or dye my hair, it has to be done that day if at all possible because I just can't wait another day for what I want. When I decided to pierce my nose, I made the appointment for right after work that day. So it should come as no surprise to you that when I get the urging to bake a cake, I've got to do it as soon as I get home from work. And this would be all fine and good if only Isaac was a cake-eater. Or, more specifically, a frosting eater, which he is most definitely not. So what happens is I bake this incredible cake, eat one piece, and then the rest gets wasted because Isaac doesn't want to eat the frosting I put on it (because, seriously, what's a cake without frosting?) and I don't want to eat any more sugar than the one piece I already had. So my dear husband made a little rule for my impulsive baking about a month ago limiting me to baking only tiny baby cakes if I'm going to make one. Then nothing gets wasted. We headed off to Goodwill and found the cutest little three inch springform cake pans and my baby cake baking days began.

Fastforward to last night's peanut butter chocolate cake that I was pining for. Here are the little guys right out of the oven, and then here's the final speciman. Pretty adorable, huh? The peanut butter chocolate ganache is a little thick, but it still tasted incredible. The funny thing is we brought the cake over to J and A's, all four of us (yes, even Isaac) had a piece, and there was still half the cake left. It was so rich, that's all we could handle in one setting. I can't imagine how much would have gone to waste if I had baked the entire recipe worth! Oh, and I made this perfect cake gluten free and no one would have even guessed.

So if you're looking for the perfect cake to bring to your next dinner party or birthday or something, this might just have been the best cake I've ever partaken in. Just saying...

And no, we're not pregnant...

So, life has been changing a little as of late. Okay, a lot. And no, we’re not pregnant, as that is the first question out of almost everyone’s mouths as soon as I start to say anything. Isaac and I have been doing a lot of talking and thinking and we decided a couple weeks ago that I would not be going back to school to pursue my Master’s anymore. There are a lot of factors involved in that decision with stress and quality of life for me being very near the top of the list, so the short of the story is after evaluating all the aspects involved with our life, it’s just better for us to follow our original dreams of saving, buying land in a couple years, building a house and eventually having some kiddos. Eventually. I think I was in shock for the first couple days after we made the final decision because I had set myself up to just be continually stressed out for the next four years and I didn’t know how to handle the freedom of coming home after work and getting to do whatever I wanted. But no need to worry as I quickly adjusted to the slower pace of life and have been thankful every day since that we have chosen this route. Now I can just sit and home and bake things to my heart’s content, like this chocolate peanut butter cake that’s on my hit list for this evening.

http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/08/chocolate-peanut-butter-cake/

Ah yes, the simple life is the definitely the life for me.

Because it's a competition...

Yes! We won, we won! Justin and Alex bought a new house and all, so Isaac and I helped them move into it last week and then spent all weekend covering ourselves in paint and getting permanent crooks in our backs purely to get the title of "better friends than the Lingblooms." And it worked! Eat your collective heart out, Tommy and Morgan. Hope gallavanting around Slovakia was worth it. And I hope I spelled Slovakia right.

After like a year of deliberating about potential colors, Lex finally decided on green, yellow, and blue. Green and yellow to pay homage to the great Ducks and blue just to add one more pretty color. It took everything we could do to hold Bob back from painting a huge 'O' over the front door. Isaac, Justin, and Mark got roof duties since they're the young men and all and I got to do the trim in honor of Morgan's absence. And much to my surprise, I discovered that I very much enjoy the challenge of trim work without any tape to make a straight edge. It really is one of the only positive things that has come from my slight perfectionist tendencies. And speaking of my perfectionist tendencies, please note that the light paint under the sill that I am working on is NOT yellow paint from my trim work. That was primer not yet covered up by the green, thank you very much. Jerry, Larissa, and Jackie were all there, too, so it made for a real party on Saturday...and Jerry didn't even fall off the ladder once!

Now it is Sunday evening, most of their house is painted (as much as we could get done in three days, anyway) Isaac's off to help at youth group and I am sitting here on the couch doing absolutely nothing, which feels incredible, by the way. And I don't even feel slightly guilty about it. I am a little sad that tomorrow is already Monday, but it keeps me in good spirits knowing that Justin and Alex now owe us something very cool in exchange for our graciously donated labor. I'll let you know when we're finally even, J and A, don't worry.

PS...Morgan, Bob tried to paint "Morgan's Door" onto one of the baby basement windows since you're so short and all, but I wouldn't let him. Rude, Bob. Rude.

PSS...I didn't put up a picture of the whole house yet because it's not quite done yet, but we'll put one up after all the trim gets done sometime in the next few weeks for those friends and family who know J and A and care about things like that.

A weekend with our friends...

We just got back from an awesome weekend at the beach with my best friend from forever ago, Hannah, and her husband Michael.

Things we learned this weekend:

1. When you cover wooden skimboards with old wetsuits, they work nearly as well as a $200 one from the store. I actually stayed up and was rather decent, for once, and both Hannah and Mike stayed up, too, even though it was their first day! Isaac and me, yes, we heart skimboarding.

2. Yurts are nice, even though it may not be classified as 'real' camping to some, because some nights it just pours and pours down rain and being in a tent in that kind of downpour could potentially make one slightly crabby.

3. Raccoons in campgrounds have absolutely no fear of mankind and will just stroll across your campsite towards your stash of food, or in Micheal's case, right into the open trunk of his car, in order to feed their hungry bellies. Could be due partially to the fact that certain unnamed campers threw the raccoons several fat marshmallows for their enjoyment, but no guarantees here. We may never know for sure.

4. They don't do small there, very well.

5. Oysterville is the cutest, quaintest, most picturesque little town ever.

6. Isaac and Michael are manly. Okay, I already knew that, but it was merely enforced when they insisted on making the fire with pure nature. And then they pulled out their plastic lighter from Target. Love it.

7. Old lighthouses are cool. So are the old men who stand in the top of them and barely even take breaths in their eagerness to spew as much knowledge about the lighthouses and anything remotely related to you as an onlooker. So are the old women who take the admission fees at the door who are positive I don't look a day over 17. As we left, she (no joke) shouted after me, "don't forget to grow up." Charming.

8. Hannah's obsessed with slugs. And snails. And large mushrooms with slugs and snails crawling on them. Apparently those things are a rarity back where she's from.

9. There is a horseshoe game manlier than the actual horseshoe game. It's called, "Throw the metal rod used for horseshoes in the air and see who can get theirs to land perfectly upright in the sand." Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it does appear that Michael is about to lacerate himself in the eyeball with his rod.

10. Waikiki is more fun than Long Beach.

11. Hannah made a great choice when she married Michael. He's a keeper, for sure.

12. Anything tastes better roasted over the open flame. Especially fire burritos. And marshmallows. And hot dogs. And chili. Although Mike's breakfast of champions on Sunday morning did give those dishes a little competition.

13. Apparently our anniversary is more important to other people than it is to Isaac and me as both of us completely forgot it was even our anniversary when we woke up Sunday morning, and Hannah was the one to remind us. But at least he did his hair for me. That was nice.

14. There are some friendships you make that come and go, and those bless your life for sure. But there are some friendships you make that will last until you're old and gray, sitting on the porch, rocking in your rocking chairs right next to each other, and that is the kind of friendship I have with Hannah. No matter the time that passes, the miles that are between us, the different lives we both lead, we will still call each other several times a day, know what the other is thinking before they even say it, and love each other 'till the day we die. Touching, I know.