Have you heard a heart beat before? Sometimes I like to sit and watch the vein pulse on my husband’s neck. It’s rhythmic. It’s comforting. It’s my favorite feeling.
My sister and I came home this weekend. She’s in school to become a Physician Assistant. She pulled out her stethoscope, and we started listening. To my heart. It beats slow and steady. To her heart. Slightly faster than mine. To my mom’s heart. It’s even faster with a gurgle. She has Mitral Valve Prolapse. Read more
Good friends are hard to come by. They’re like gold when you find them. The same is true of a good recipe.
I took a last minute trip home to Dallas this weekend to see my friend and her newborn baby. We’ve been friends since 4th grade when we met on the soccer field. We played for the Wildcats. I was a defender. She was a defender. And the next thing you know we were jumping on her trampoline. Then came sleepover parties. Cookouts with our families. Dressing up like Pilgrims and Indians at Thanksgiving at an age I wont mention. Much too old to be dressing up. Or not. We hung out at her house nearly every weekend with the posse in highschool. I’d fall asleep on the couch early. It was a given. We went to prom together and graduated high school together. We separated for college but spent late nights talking at Starbucks over breaks. We walked down the isle at each others weddings. And then I moved away. We grew up. Became adults. Semi adults. And then she had a baby. The distance felt farther than the 1600+ miles Google maps displayed. So I flew home on a whim. Thanks Dad. Held the sweetest baby in the world. And saw my friend, once a Wildcat, become a mother. Pure gold. Read more
For my entire married life—4 years and counting—we’ve been eating Jack’s Garden Fresh Salsa. Purchased from Costco. It’s one of the main reasons this two person household has a membership. That and rolled oats. And then we moved to Connecticut. No Jack here. Read more
Who was your first blog crush? Mine was Smitten Kitchen. I’ve been reading since nearly the beginning. I remember when she first went on that Caribbean food blogger trip. I was green with envy and thought maybe I’d get to go one day. And I remember when she announced she had a bun in the oven with real buns in the oven. And when she told us so long ago that there would be a cookbook. She’s who I looked to when I started this blog. In a way she’s been my mentor, not that she knows it. And I imagine she’s been a mentor to thousands of others too. Read more
This cake is my nod to fall. My nod that it’s coming. But not here yet. I may be wearing my favorite sweatshirt and yoga pants already. Working with the windows open. That’s allowing the tinniest of chills to blow through our apartment. Drinking warm coffee in the morning instead of iced. And we may have gone pear-picking already. Read more
I hoard two things in this world. Gift cards. And recipes. And maybe holey-armpit t-shirts, but we’ve already gone down that road.
My wallet is full of gift cards from last Christmas. Who knows, maybe from the Christmas prior. I’m not a shopper of clothes. But if and when I do, I probably have a gift card to pay for the total. I call this resourceful. My husband calls this wasteful. His giftcards don’t last a month. Read more
A couple months ago, I started this simple summer series. I read every last suggestion from you on how to keep summer simple and even implemented a handful, although they were faced with great resistance at first. A friend from college posted a suggestion to go outside, sit on the back porch, and stop everything. Shivers ran up my spine as a read it. Read more
We made our first trek to NYC this weekend. It was glorious. But it started with an alarm at 5:45 am. A walk to the train in the pouring rain. And a two hour train ride. Wishful thinking—I thought we lived closer to the city. Read more
