I am Thankful for Snow, Peanut Butter, Family and Lattes

(Not in that order, and not and not an all encompassing statement)

Like last year, the BF and I skipped out of DC for Thanksgiving and opted for some early season skiing, peanut butter pie, and a potato product for our Thanksgiving meal. It is like a tradition of sorts. We went to Utah last Thanksgiving and decided to do a repeat this year.

This year we arrived a bit earlier in the day, and while we still had some hashbrowns at the hotel bar, we were able to have a restaurant Thanksgiving meal at Faustina. We also were able to have my parents come join us the day after Thanksgiving which made the trip really special for me.

The day my parents were driving to Utah to meet us, we skied Alta so we could get our ski legs under us. We had some amazing weather, decent early season snow and ended up running into people who were on our same flight!

That evening we met up with my parents for dinner at Squatters, where they have the most delicious peanut butter pie! We knew we were going to have to back back after having it last year! (Their beer is really good to, but man oh man, that pie!).

The next day we decided to ski Solitude, which I really enjoyed last year. In turned out to be sunny, warm, and the perfect terrain for all of us to warm up our legs!

That evening we checked out a local pizza place, Davanza's, and they had the most amazing walls covered in cans.

The boys were into watching the football games and recaps, while my mom and I were intrigued by all the different can designs.

The final day of skiing out my legs to the test, and I can say I am happy I have been hitting the gym a lot recently!

The BF couldn't join us on our last ski day, so it was just my parents and I. After a lot of indecision we decided to go to Snowbird, which we had last skied at about 12 years ago! We lucked out with some sunshine, moderate temperatures and some great laps on the tram.

We skied until our legs fell off. Well, we stopped just before that, but we skied a full day and cheersed each other with some brews at the base.

With a snow storm rolling in, my parents got an early start the next morning to head home while we broke out the laptops for work.

I discovered a lovely bookstore/coffee shop that made my mornings. We got to do a bit more exploring:

Then to top off the food for the trip we went to an awesome pasta place that was just a hop skip from our apartment which was perfect since the snow had really started to pick up.

After dinner I braved the blizzard that had set in and went and picked up two more pieces of that peanut butter pie for us to enjoy in the warmth of our hotel.

Yes that is PB pie in bed while I read a novel on the iPad.

It was a great Thanksgiving and I was lucky to get to spend it with some of my family.

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Using Fabric as Wallpaper

I have doing some more research on temporary decorating options for apartment dwellers. I really love the idea of temporary wallpaper or renters wallpaper, that I wrote about earlier this month, but as I mentioned in the post there are a few drawbacks 1) cost and 2) unknowns of how clean it actually removes. While white walls can be crisp and provide a modern background for an apartment, the option to personalize a space with paint or wallpaper is a great option to add a design element. Lately, I have been hearing about another alternative that seems to be the most affordable and easiest to remove option! Enter...

Fabric!

As wallpaper!!

The options are greatly expanded, as my reading seems to suggest that a medium, to heavy weight cotton fabric and some liquid cornstarch will transform a wall. With places like IKEA even selling bold printed fabrics for purchase by the yard, this can be a cost- effective and low-commitment project. 

Some great posts that I found on how this works and what the expected outcome can be are here, here and here. 

Seems simple, but I am sure there is some time (and a buddy) needed to get it up on the wall. I also think being smart about the design is key here. Lining up repeating patterns can be tricky! I also read some comments about the fabric shrinking once it was wet, so the panels would pull away from each other, and also that some fabrics would bleed the color onto the wall. Perhaps prewashing your fabric would be smart.

Via Number Street Designs

I am impressed by how permanent the results look and the fact that it really does sound like there is very little residue or issue with removing it when it is time to pack up and move. 

Has anyone tried this? Would anyone try this DIY?

As another option, albeit a very temporary one, wrapping paper seems to also get the same affect but with very little permanence. A quick and easy solution which you can read about here.  

Read about my original ideas of using temporary or renters wallpaper here. 

An Owl Birthday Cake

Some close friends of ours have an adorable little girl who just turned two and we got invited to the party! 

When our friends told us about the plans for her birthday party I volunteered to make the cake/cupcakes for the event, since I wanted to give the birthday girl something special. I originally thought of just doing a few batches of different cupcakes, but I quickly decided to do something a little more complicated after S told me that she had purchased some adorable owl cupcake topper decorations.

Via Beautiful Paper Crafts on Etsy

I couldn't get over how cute the owls were and I kept thinking that their simple shape was something I could maybe replicate as a cake! It took a lot of supply gathering and planning, and even more time, but it was such a fun project!

I sketched out an outline similar to the cupcake toppers, and then baked a chocolate sheet cake in a 9X13 pan. I also learned some things about baking a cake that has a flat top. I still had to level my cake so it was flat, but baking the cake submerged a pan of water seemed to help it bake a bit more evenly with less of a dome in the middle. 

After I got the cake baked and leveled. I put it in the freezer for 20-30 minutes. Then I used a template I had sketched to cut out the owl shape. Once the cake was cut, it was a matter of making the frosting. I followed this recipe for swiss meringue buttercream, and while the taste was spot on and exactly what I wanted, but the consistency wasn't what I needed for holding some pipping designs. I ended up having to alter the recipe and throw in some confectioners sugar to stiffen the frosting, but it still turned out decent. It is certainly something I still need to perfected, but I love the flavor of this less-sweet frosting. I had to mix brown, green, and orange in additional to some white frosting to decorate and used like 5-6 different pastry tips for a variety of textures. I also purchased some modeling chocolate to make the feet and eyes, which worked out really well!

So after about ten hours of baking, freezing, cutting, and decorating...I finally ended up with an owl that I was pretty proud of.

Whoooooooots turning two??? (Best. Birthday. Theme. Ever.)

I still can't get over how cute it turned out! It was really fun surprising S and Z with it! It was pretty cute/funny when we decided to have Z blow out the candles and sing happy birthday, she kind of hand a mini meltdown and kind of freaked out about the cake. She didn't want to get anywhere near it! Luckily, once she had a bite of the cake and cupcakes, she was sucking down frosting like a birthday girl should be!

Since the cake was chocolate I wanted to make some cupcakes for flavor variety. 

I made a lemon zested cake with fresh raspberry buttercream. They were a hit! I didn't think the kids would like them, but most of the kids really enjoyed these as well as the adults! The raspberry frosting was probably my best frosting to-date! It was amazingly tasty!

To really take it to a new level, I also wanted to make some mini "cupcake shooters" (as the BF called them) that were just vanilla vanilla and small for little hands! I saw someone used ketchup cups for mini cupcakes, and at our last burger outing, I hoarded a bunch of cups that were put to good use. 

They were just too cute for words! I loved hot little they were, and the fact that people who didn't want a big cupcake, could just have a little taste. These are certainly going to be my new go-to party option!

Overall, I am so excited that I pulled off some great treats for Z's birthday, and I really loved making the owl cake! Now I just need to find the next cake decorating project....

A Modern Christmas

I am attracted to pretty much all things Christmas when it comes to decorating. Growing up, and even now, our house was always decorated very well. My mom always has the inside feeling festive with the main floor of our house full of centerpieces, garlands, nutcrackers and all sorts of festive decor. My dad takes on the outside, and always has one of the classiest and most attractive light displays in the neighborhood. 

See? Classy, AmIright? (This also makes me really miss Theo as he would pee on the reindeer and sometimes almost electrocute himself by aiming for one of the electrical plugs...such a crazy dog)

I don't buy a tree out here in DC. Mainly because I don't stick around for much of the holiday season, and I am sure like anything else here, they are crazy expensive (I also don't do fake trees...I just don't). I do try to bring some festive to my apartment regardless of being sans tree.

Last year I did some ghetto-esque decorations, that certainly not up to standard of my childhood roots, but I guess that is what you get living on a budget in an apartment (and last year I lived in a room, not an apartment, just a single room that functioned as my entire apartment). 

This year, I got a jump start on a few ideas I had for holiday decor. I am currently on the hunt for some sticks so I can attempt to make something similar to this.

Source: Anthro? But Unknown

I also wanted to do something a bit more more visually attractive than the tiny handing ornaments I did last year. After thinking it over for awhile, I decided to try to make some of my own. They are a work in progress, but I have big plans for these.

Stay tuned for the final product!

Job Searching

via

I went into this most recent job search having a pretty targeted idea of what I wanted to be doing. This made the process much harder, but also a lot easier knowing that I wasn't  hunting for just any job. Knowing generally what it is that you want to be doing is always a plus. I also realized that there were things about work environment, type of company, etc. that also helped direct my job search. I knew that I wanted to go back to the private side of business. My non-profit stint really had been for the experience (oh, and an experience it was!) but not with the long term in mind, and I knew that going in. I wanted to see HR not only from the private side,  but also see how it changed when you worked at a non-profit. I also knew that with DC being only a means to an end as far as my geographical location, I figured I should try out the non-profit world while I was in the thick of it all. Lucky for me, not only did I get the non-profit flavor I was looking for, but I also got to touch on HR related to the public sector as well. These different lenses of business and HR were exactly what I had been hoping to experience. 

All combined, it was good. I had all these different lenses in which to see HR and business from. I felt like I spoke a lot of "languages" after having to bounce between different people and different projects. I knew going back to the private sector now would allow me to do something different. HR is never (or rarely) seen as any sort of profit generator for a company. Now, as an HR person...I totally disagree, but I can also see how this school of thought has been developed and how it will be hard to break away from. I wanted to try my hand in being a piece of an organization that was viewed differently than just overhead. I wanted to offer expertise, insight and knowledge to generate a value to my organization and to other organizations. I loved that idea of working with a variety of clients. Getting to tackle a variety of issues and constantly having to rethink and modify my knowledge to fit their needs.

My job search took awhile. I was picky, focused, and not willing to compromise on what I wanted. I felt like one of those couples on house hunters where the host has to give them the "Your wish list...yea...it is a bit too long" pep talk. But, I am stubborn like no other and I stuck with my laundry list of desires. 

It's not easy, this whole "being an adult" thing. You have to walk a very thin line of what is best and what is necessary. Paying rent and having food in the fridge is important, but doing something that makes you feel like you are growing and is interesting to you, is really important too. Job searching is like anything else. 

It is hard, until it is easier. 

Living in a world where you are constantly inundated with information, status updates, updated titles on linkedin. It is hard to know if you are making the right choices for yourself. Feeling steady on your own two feet can sometimes feel like you are a new born giraffe with splayed legs. 

Like everything, it comes together, and when it does, it feels oh so good. 

So if your looks, thinking about looking, or just started a new job. Remember, it all works out. If you want to take some sorority logic to heart: "Just trust the process" (and remember that writing a good cover letter is going to be the golden approach!).