Celebrating a Beautiful Fall Weekend

Beautiful fall weather has finally arrived in Atlanta. Ethan and I have been soaking it in by opening the windows and letting the crisp fall air (and fall allergens) breeze into our apartment. Since I was filled with autumnal spirit,  this weekend I celebrated my favorite way, in the kitchen!

Homemade Pumpkin Spice Lattes and Chocolate Chip Cookies

I found a recipe for homemade pumpkin spice lattes at this great blog Elle & Blair. I didn’t follow the recipe completely but used it to get a general idea of the ingredient ratios. I have been ranting and raving for years that pumpkin spice lattes are a scam because they contain no actual pumpkin, just the spices used in pumpkin pie. However, the recipe calls for actual pumpkin puree, so I drank my latte with a cookie and slice of humble pie. The cookie recipe came from my girl Martha. They are perfectly golden and crisp on the edges but soft and chewy in the center.

Homemade Chili

I was inspired by a recent episode of my new favorite shows, Mad Hungry with Lucinda Scala Quinn (not surprisingly, part of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia). I wanted to make her recipe for Butterfield Stageline Chili, but was appalled by the price of brisket at the grocery store and opted for a Martha recipe that only used ground beef. I like my chili a little sweeter so I used half ground beef and half ground pork. As mentioned in previous blog posts, Atlanta grocery stores stock a very limited selection of Mexican ingredients, so I had to substitute fresh jalapenos for the dried red chili peppers called for in the recipe. The chili is still delicious and will be even better tomorrow when the flavors are better developed.

Pumpkin Sugar Face Scrub

I recently discovered a show called The Chew with Clinton Kelly, Carla Hall (Hootie!), Michael Symon and Daphne Oz (daughter of Dr. Oz). As much as I love Clinton and Carla, the show was almost unwatchable. It was full of forced banter and lowest-common-denominator humor. However, they had a segment where Daphne gave her recipe for a homemade pumpkin and sugar face scrub. Since I still have quite a few cans of pumpkin puree (my stockpile after the great pumpkin shortage of 2010), I gave it a try. The pumpkin mix was slimy and cold, but I could feel a refreshing tingle as the pumpkin enzymes rejuvenated my skin. Overall, it was a little weird, but I must say that my skin feels quite fresh and I am eager to try other homemade beauty treatments. Warning: I made a half-recipe, and much to the chagrin of my husband,  and it was still WAY too much; I only made him participate because I didn’t want to waste valuable ingredients. He has mentioned how nice his skin feels, however.

So Jealous

As a child, one of my favorite movies was The Little Mermaid. My sister and I would have contests in the pool to see who could best swim like a mermaid; the winner got to pretend to be Ariel and the loser was a nameless mermaid friend or sister. I constantly sang the songs from the movie around the house, to my family’s annoyance. However, I think what most captivated me was the ability of the animators to draw sparkles. I practiced hours upon hours, trying to draw sparkles, specifically the sparkly dress that Ariel wears at the end of the movie. 

I love that dress and have always wanted a pale sparkly dress all my own. To this day, I have yet to master the art of sparkle drawing and do not own a sparkly dress.

All of these memories resurfaced the other day when I was watching the Emmy Awards.  I am watching Ryan and Julianna’s painfully awkward red-carpet coverage and what did I see…

Claire Danes in a Ariel-esque sparkly dress!  I would never wear that dress; I don’t think I will ever go anywhere that requires such formal attire but I still want it! Although, I like Claire Danes much more now. I imagine that she also loves The Little Mermaid and chose that dress for the same reasons that I would have.

It has been too long…

Last week I started my first student teaching placement. I am currently in an 11th grade English Language Arts class. My cooperating teacher is very nice and I am excited about this part of my program. I am, however, a little scared of the 37 students in the class who are all taller than me and look at me like they hate me. I choose to not take that last part personally since it is first period and I assume they are mad that they have to be at school…not at me. I taught my first little snippet of a lesson the other day.  If any of you are interested in a graphic organizer illustrating how noun categories overlap, you know who to call.

In other exciting news, I made an impromptu trip to L.A.’s Fashion District in search of wedding supplies and discovered that they have so much cheap stuff! I found ties for the groomsmen in the perfect shade of yellow for $5. (This was a huge victory because I had been searching everywhere but all the yellow ties were too gold or too buttercup.) I also found a really cute hair piece for me for about 75% less than what I would have paid for it retail.

Countdown to wedding: 36 days!