This is my first Thanksgiving that I’m not spending at home with my parents, so I’m feeling especially reminiscent of our celebrations. Thinking about our kitchen island counter top loaded with food – both the Thanksgiving classics as well as a good amount of Chinese food cooked up by my mom (“need more vegetables!”) and brought along by our guests. Thinking about the kids that come every year, whom I only see once a year, and how different they look… Read more »
I really don’t know how, but for the past couple of months I was convinced that Thanksgiving was actually last Thursday… I wrote it down and decorated the page in my planner and everything! Funny thing was, Hunter thought it was last Thursday too. And so we made all of our extravagant plans for last week… set a menu for our Thanksgiving dinner, went grocery shopping for ingredients, struggled hardcore to obtain a turkey in Amsterdam (apparently the Dutch don’t… Read more »
Hunter and I don’t have an oven in our little Amsterdam apartment. We don’t. Have. An oven. It’s been a little (or a lot) sad missing out on all the fall baking this year (pumpkin/apple spice EVERYTHING!), but of course our limitation hasn’t stopped us from some fun stove-top experimentation! Here’s a classic – homemade pizzas… in a pan! It’s ridiculously fast, easy, and so satisfying. Plus, it has way less fat than delivery pizzas so you don’t even have… Read more »
Leftover avocado from Hunter’s birthday foods + spending most of the day without protein before a much-needed grocery store run = this super easy and yummy (if not a little excessive) snack! recipe Ingredients: 1/2 ripe avocado, 1/2 tomato, 1/4 cup fresh chopped cilantro (a palmful), juice of 1/2 lime, 2 eggs, salt & pepper to taste Chop tomato and avocado into small pieces. Mix with cilantro and lime juice. Beat and scramble up eggs with salt and pepper. Combine… Read more »
Sooo as a follow up to this post, everything ended up going really well! Granted, temporarily living in a foreign country makes it more difficult to find the things you want (why can’t I find nearby Target/Michael’s equivalents?!), but I made do with what I could scrounge up. And judging by Hunter’s reactions as he came home to my work, I did well. decorations First, balloons! I originally intended to hang them all on my homemade decorative garlands and along… Read more »
These easy-to-make garlands are cute and super customizable for any kind of event you’re having! I made some for Hunter’s birthday, which passed a couple of days ago, and they had a big effect on how our little apartment space looked. how to: Decide on a color scheme and pick out some fun papers (ribbons, balloons, and other fun pieces can be included too). I used stiff, matte construction paper in blues and greens and some patterned wrapping paper in… Read more »
I’m currently re-reading a few papers that I wrote in college, and am (really surprisingly) impressed that they actually sound coherent, somewhat insightful, and somewhat intelligent. Considering that my paper-writing memories are overwhelmingly of late-night scrambles to pull scattered thoughts together, I really am clueless as to how I pulled some of these off. After rediscovering and rewatching this video a couple of times this year, I’m thoroughly convinced that I want a yorkipoo as my first pup. SO CUTE… Read more »
I’ve now been in Amsterdam nearly two months, and today is the first day that I’ve made it to a coffee shop to get some work done. Partly because of laziness, I think, but mostly because I’ve been trying so so hard to get into the good habit of being able to be productive at home (which, in this case, is our tiny/cozy little apartment on the canal). Well it’s been two months and that hasn’t worked out at all…. Read more »
