TBT | Salmon Recipe

I'm slowly catching up with the social media world; today I caved in and downloaded Flipagram, which is basically a way to create .gif stuff for Instagram or wherever else we choose to post our daily meanderings. I dug up some sequential photos from ... 2004? & decided I had to share. So, to honor #TBT, here's that time when I was a Ginger Ninja [... Ginja?] & Enjel went bowling. Oh.. and I was still in my skate shoe phase [thank you, Journeys... RIP Globes haha].
On the topic of videos, after Sydni and I had an all out jam session on the way to Mindi's this morning [to music from Frozen, of course], I bumped into this remake. I think 1] this little girl is phenomenal, and 2] The African influence kind of makes this seem more summerish than wintery, which is juuuust fine for me right about now. I'm not perched on my snowboard on a slope all day, erego I'm done for now with this weatherrrrr...
Love. (:

Back in the real world, the day wore on as usual, and I got home in time to get dinner put together, trying out a variation on a salmon recipe. We're all about amino acids in this place.. haha.

Anyway, here's a simple salmon recipe if you're into that sorta thing:

Ingredients:
* Salmon steaks
* Olive oil
* 5 tbsp honey
* 6 tbsp honey mustard [I would really recommend honey mustard, too.]
* ½ - ¾ c fresh-squeezed orange juice [the original recipe calls for 1 full cup of OJ, but even ½ was a lot for 2 salmon steaks]

First things first:
➊ | Preheat oven to 375°. I chose not to broil these, but if you are set on broiling, go for it. Spray a baking pan and lay in salmon. Add some salt & pepper, and a thin layer of honey on the salmon. Put it in the oven for about 10 minutes.
 ---- Note: I made green beans and cous cous as sides for this. I would recommend getting the green beans going before the salmon if you are using fresh beans. I boiled mine down some before they hit the skillet just so they'd cook a little faster. The cous cous takes like, 8 minutes from start to finish, so that should be bad. 

salmon & green beans [& some fresh tea brewing!]

➋ | While the salmon is baking, squeeze out your oranges, measuring out however much juice you prefer. Like I said, I chose to use somewhere right between a ½ and ¾ cup of actual juice, even though the original recipe calls for a full cup [it's just.. a lot]. And no, I'm not sure if using regular OJ from a jug would be as good or not. I think I used 4-5 medium sized oranges with no juicer [sad face] to get mine done. Add the honey & honey mustard to the juice and stir well.

 

➌ | Add the juice mixture to the salmon once it's been baking for that first 10 minutes or so. I think mine cooked for about 13 minutes or so before I got back to it, but it wasn't bad.

orange juice + honey + honey mustard + salmon

➍ | Let the salmon bake again with the mixture in the dish for another 5-8 minutes or so, so everything can absorb. If you're doing a side and you time everything right, it should all come out at the same time. I'm no professional at plating food, but here in the privacy of our own home, I'm really not overly-concerned about appearance as much as taste-tester approvals.

yummmmm!

➎ | Devour! And, if you're like me, take notes on what you'd do differently the next time around. I might actually, if I do this again for just the two of us, use even less juice and maybe a little less mustard. I am all about salmon glazes, so while the soupy consistency of the juice blend was still delicious, I'm bent on finding a way to carmelize it. There will definitely be some orange marmalade in this the next time around. Oh, and next time I probably won't make tea at the same time as dinner; I'm not a huuuge fan of lukewarm iced tea, even with ice cubes. Haha.. Oh well.  

delish!

The crowd decided this was a good one, so we'll bookmark it and bring it back in a couple of weeks with the revisions.

 

For now, I'm parked on the couch about to watch Soul Surfer with my favorites before we put Thursday to rest. 

gosh, i love them.

 That's a wrap, blogbots. ♥

xo | cmd

WHAT.. A .. WEDNESDAY

Today started off with a 4-hour commute to work.
That's right, FOUR... HOURS.

I'm totally accustomed to a lengthy commute whenever I take Sydni out to Milford before heading to the office, but today was an entirely different story.

This... a 5-car accident on the Beechmont Levee, was to blame for the severing of a major commuting artery between basically two sides of Cincinnati:

borrowed this from the cincinnati enquirer
photog: liz dufour

^ I didn't know exactly what had happened or see any of the pictures until I got to work.... at 10:30.

There's nothing like an extended stop-and-go drive to make someone crazy, especially when it's in Cincinnati, where the traffic already flirts with the line of insanity when it comes to commute congestion. I left my house at 6:30, like usual, to drop Sydni off in Milford.

7:25 am.

First, I thought it was an unusually-slow advancement through a routine light that does lag, but not like it did today. Every 30 seconds showed another driver doing a 5-point turn in the middle of the road to turn back and find an alternate route. But not us... we're gonna brave it.

ummm....

Crap. Those flares advised us all that not only was our on-ramp closed, but that it was proooobably going to be a long trip back around. The cars coming the other way weren't doing much coming at all.. they were mostly just sitting as we inched on past.

squad car lights

So we followed each other back onto eastbound Beechmont, which, mind you is the exact direction from which I had originally came about an hour and 15 minutes earlier by this point. Squad cars with flashing lights and sirens driving down the medians never really mean good things.

bumper to bumper :(

And back on up the hill, which by this time in the morning [8:25 or so] gave a discouraging glimpse of all the traffic that was clearly headed in the wrong direction.

I decided to share my confusion with my phone's camera:

So long story short [and I do mean long], after using an entire quarter tank of gas in touch-and-go traffic for the next TWO hours of our lives, through stoplights that had been manually disabled and replaced with cops directing traffic, I finally got to work.

The way home was an entirely different, barren in comparison story.
fafa
There was also a much better view (:

gorgeous!

= HAPPPPPYYYY ME (:

selfie joy : no 4-hour commute!!

There are worse things.
And there are BETTER things!
Liiiiiike.. Becky texting me asking to see us tonight! (:
[Sushi it was!]

nom nom nommmmm

Of course, the fish who were not part of the meal had a special admirer, too:

her courtesy half-smile, because
mommy, the fish want to play with me!

Life's good, yeah?
... Yeah (: (: (:

xo | cmd

Card-Making With Sydni: Night 1

First things first: Norwood is IN the Valentine's Day card-giving spirit:

.........you're* >:(

... It was sweet though. Haha.

So perhaps I'm into the mushy gushy [< is that a word?] part of Valentine's Day, but I will use it as the perfect excuse to do some extra crafting. I have the world's best assistant to help me, so it's always a no-brainer.

Tonight's mission: [The start] of Valentine's Day cards. This meant busting out everything from scotch tape to paintbrushes. It's not uncommon in our house, but it always seems just a little more fancy when it's for a special project.

mama & minime paper cutting table ♥

mama only cutting board.

[sydni] holding scissors to help me photograph ;)

my painter!

She was.. dying to get into the painting part of our little project. I gladly obliged, and soon a palet of pinks, red and purple all came together into a blended masterpiece.
^ See? She's awesome! ;)
Sure, we only got a little paint on the actual project, but there is nothing wrong with a little extra painting by small hands. I love it (:

She of course got distracted by beads. It's not like we have many of those in this house [that's a lie..], so while I finished up the assembly of our painted pieces, she made a necklace. Apparently for a giant. A giant.. necklace. It was beautiful.

crafter in the making!

Finally, we finished up our first round of Valentine's Day gift-making. This little box will be sent off to a special set of grandpar--- shhhh, it's a secret, I'm told. So here's our finished Valentine's Day owl box. We'll decide what kind of candy to stash inside it a little later, since the pieces in the picture have somehow... mysteriously ... disappeared. Hmmmm... :p 

done!

Craft night #1 = Success! Tomorrow we'll continue our card-making with the more standard cards: cutesy little sayings and all that.

*Insert shower here... *
And post-shower, we finally checked in with Mr. Rob, who had been down in the basement for most of the latter crafting doing some work of his own to the proclaimed mancave we have.

shelf hung... model cars displayed ... facing our helmet rack..

^ Yeah, we have a helmet rack. That's because we have more helmets [clearly] than we need, and no alternative home for that bookshelf as of now. Erego, helmet rack. Or shelf. Helmet shelf. Either way, it's a 3-3 his/hers display and we'll leave it at that.

basement things!!!

^ More importantly, his dart board has now found its home on the wall, and the pool table is ready to be felted! I have no clue how he got those slates up there without killing himself; those suckers are heavy, and he did it without destroying the actual table, either. He's a beast!

And to finish the night, Sydni and the dogs got to unwind all their extra energies at the same time. Good. Stuff (:

Sx3! [Sydni. Sasha. Stella]

They are hilarious. And adorable. Toddler giggles and wagging puppy tailes are the best way to end a night! ♥♥♥

It's safe to say it's bedtime here.
Goooooodnight!

xo | cmd

Valentines.. WEEK

Tis the month of love.
Apparently, in and around our house, it's going to be the entire week of Cupid-infused fun.

It started today when we arrived home to find that Nana & Pappy [aka, my parents] had sent Sydni a special Valentines Day goodies box.

exciiiited!

Between puffy stickers, a puzzle and a paintbook, I'm pretty sure we are ALL set for some fun this week.

all kinds of fun - thank you, nana & pappy!!

And then.. I started getting dinner ready & Rob decided today would be the day he learned to do chicken alfredo. It was of course a cinch, but we did it together and therefore he gets way more credit than I do.

#teamwork! haha (:

My little family is all back together tonight; this is the life right here. We just did story time piled up between pillows and puppies, and so we bid a good Monday night to you & yours!

all my kids ;) ♥♥♥

^ P.S. - Dogs do in fact make the best pillows. Just ask Sydni. ;)

G'Nite!

xo | cmd

Sunday IS a Funday (:

In usual fashion, Sunday mornings = Church!


hangin' with my love @ sonrise ♥

After church, we decided we wouldn't spend the rest of the day in the house like we did yesterday [albeit we were being productive, still......]. We decided to head to Kenwood. As it turns out, the mall-goers may in fact be more fearless in their parking endeavors than most. This, among many others, was a pretty common sight today:

look ma, no tire!

^ We captured that one just in case we returned to find my car smashed if/when they decided to pull back down off that little hill. A few rows over was a truck pulled so far up a bank that even Rob commented that it wasn't a good idea. It was a chaotic sight that surprisingly made the crowd inside the mall seem tame. Go figure.

I finally took back one of those I'll-eventually-get-around-to-returning-this-maybe-hopefully things and we spent the early afternoon perusing through the place at our leisure. We left with two pairs of jeans for Rob & a new pair of boots for me. I call that a splurge, but it probably could've been worse, too.. haha.

mission[s] accomplished!

And then.... we stopped by to visit Kalyn at work! - And, to eat, of course, because Main Street is the B-O-M-B.

perfect low-key sunday afternoon digs (:

dull moments? what are those?

I couldn't help but capture this guy on the way out, either:

#subienation, haha..

^ Here's to 2014 and our Subaru ownership, KP! Hah.

Rob and I wrapped up some more stuff around the house this evening, including the running of wires throughout the floors to hook up surround sound. Did I mention my man is a handy guy? This task in my hands would've had the whole house short circuited somehow. He's awesome, the house sounds awesome... it .. is.. awesome.

And even mooooore awesomerererrrr.. was us having a nice little nightcap with Kalyn & Co. once she was off work. She does, after all live about a whole 1.5 miles from our place, so the misery of a cold car was about the only complaint as we headed to and from.

it's a gramps growler kinda night!

Yeah. Gramps from a growler into Rhinegeist glasses & mason jars is definitely not the worst way to end a weekend. I had a feeling it would be a great couple of days; I'm not disappointed!

Work week, here we coooome....

xo | cmd

DIY Tutorial : Nail & String Home Décor

Hi, blogbots! [I mean that in a most endearing way]

I, along with a lot of you, occasionally troll Pinterest. When I do, it's usually to re-pin copious amounts of mouthwatering recipes or a rustic living room built into the side of a mountain itself.. and everything in between. Every once in a while, I manage to download an idea off the web and actually do it. This was one of those times.

So I thought I'd share. I'm not much of a tutorial kinda girl, but I'll do my best.

So you've decided you want to do string/nail art, and have managed to sort through the bajillion examples on Pinterest. You've even managed to select your specific design, color schemes and boards. We'll start with the basics:

*****

Here we go. Nail & String Art, the unofficially official tutorial, by yours truly.

SUPPLIES:

- A BASE. Decide what kind of base you want to use. Your options here are nearly limitless, just make sure you don't choose something too thin [or you'll have nails poking out on the other side], too pliable [ply wood for example would be a bad choice] or too soft [like, foamboard or something]. Really, I'd recommend solid wood. I bought some plain craft plaques at Michael's for a couple bucks each. They even had beveled edges already, so aesthetically I was off to a good start.
- PAINT. If you want a solid color, I would recommend a primer. I didn't use one because I wanted some of the woodgrain to show, but that's up to you. I also used an aerosol paint because the project was so small.
- NAILS. Keep in mind I've only done this ONE time now, so do some research on the right nails based on the size and intensity of your project. I found 5/8" wire nails at the hardware store and they worked just fine. Make sure you buy enough (:
- STRING. Another Michael's purchase.  I used Aunt Lydia's Crochet Thread [size 10]; it's thin and coarse enough to not unravel, but soft enough to maneuver.
- HAMMER. You will need this.

HOW-I-DID-THIS:

*This is just how I did this. If you like the way these turned out, feel free to follow along! If you know you'd like to adapt it to your own liking, well... that is what I love about crafts. We can do whatever we want! I hope this is at least helpful!*

1 | Paint the bases. I chose a brick red color, because it matches the rest of our living room. I also used aerosol. Be smart, and use a well-ventilated area.

spray paint.
4 coats, each dried in about 5 minutes

2 | Cut out your designs. For ours, I used an online font generator and chose the letters I needed, then chose 6 or 7 different font styles. You can search for the letters and state outlines anywhere on the web and hopefully find what you need.

snip.. snip snip snip (:

3 | Grab your hammer! Prepare yourself to drive tiny nails into boards about nine thousand times. I used iiiiitty bitty pieces of scotch tape to hold the design down, but I would probably recommend painters tape if you're using any sort of gloss or matte medium, so to not peel off any of your paint.


here... we.. go.

I wouldn't drive the nails in further than a few good smacks. If they're a little uneven, you can always level them out when you've got them all in. Nail around the outline of whatever shape you're using. For tiny details, I would recommend exaggerating just a little bit; it might look silly at first but will compensate when you start working with the string. 

nails nails nails.

4 | Peel up your paper. Use your fingers, pliers, the hammer, whatever.. to gently fidget around any nails that went in a little crooked or are wobbly when you take the paper up.

paper.... no paper.

I realized immediately that my letter C looked more like a shriveled lima bean than a letter, which taught me that I should've made the letter a bit bigger. [You'll notice on the 2nd state I did, the letter is more pronounced.]

5 | String It Up. This was, for me, the easiest part of it, and a bit therapeutic if I'm being honest. A hint I realized after I finished the first state: To get an evenly-distributed look of the strings, count how many nails go around the outline. Then divide that by the number of nails of the smaller, inner outline. That will give you approximately how many times you'll have to use each inner nail for loops around the outer nails. For example, if you used 85 nails around the large outline, and 20 around the small outline, then you would need to use each inner nail about 4 to 5 times. (85 divided by 20 = 4.25). Once you get all the way around, tie a knot off on the original starting nail.

I'm one of those people who firmly believes in singeing edges. I've been doing it to shoelaces, hoodie ties and random strings for years. Since this string doesn't have any waxy component, just be sure to cut off enough to give some slack and don't burn it too close. Otherwise, your knot will come loose and good luck getting that back together without re-doing the whole thing.

playing with fire... be careful!

ta.... da!!!

^ (You'll notice there's a small gap in the strings around the top of the C; this is from my not counting out how many times I would have to use each nail... rookie mistake. Woops.

6 | Rinse & Repeat! I went ahead and did the rest of my letters, the other state [Illinois] and spared myself from taking pictures of every single one of those, too. It's basically the same process over and over again.

paper.. and nails.. and string.. (:

My apologies in advance for the grainy quality of these pictures; I promise I'll get better ones here soon. Anyway, this is what the finished products looked like: strung up & hung up!

♥!

If you have any questions, please ask! Like I said, this was a learning experience for me, too... so if you have any tips or tricks to share, I'm open to those, too (: This was a fun little project, and perhaps with bigger nails in a more simple design, thicker string [maybe elastic of some sort?], I'm sure the kiddos could have some fun with this too.

Happy crafting... & Happy SATURDAY!!

xo | cmd

Friday: 5 Reasons IT. ROCKED.

Usually, Fridays come and go and serve up the excitement of 1] the work week ending, 2] Friday office lunches and sometimes 3] early releases that give the weekend a jumpstart.

TODAY however, Friday churned up five reasons to call it a slam dunk day. We'll go in chronological order, since all of them are pretty awesome!

1] JENNIE'S BIRTHDAY!

she's gorgeous!!! hbd, jennie!

Haaaaaaaaappy BIRTHDAY JD! This lovely lady celebrates another year young today! We agreed that now that I'm back in Ohio and am slowly migrating my way closer and closer to Columbus, I'll make it a point to get up there soon and we'll do some belated celebrating. I hope your day was amazing! ♥

2] SAMSUNG OR APPLE? HOW ABOUT ONE OF EACH?!

So, the bad news is.. that someone in Norwood managed to comandeer my work phone over the weekend. Since I don't typically tote it everywhere I go, we ascertained that someone either swiped it off my desk or I dropped it in the 40 feet between our door and my car. Either way, it didn't dull the anxiety of having to tell the bosses that I lost their phone. What softened the blow is realizing that my bosses are two of the most understanding individuals around, and advised me that it wasn't a big deal. Things happen. < Somehow, that made me feel even worse? Haha. Anyway, my now-kidnapped Samsung was officially replaced today with an iPhone. I'm a loyal Droid user without the faintest clue of how to operate an iAnything, so this.. should.. be interesting. Either way, that weight is off my shoulders and now I'm back on connected x2 status!

personal + work

P.S. - Don't worry, Droid... I'm not going anywhere ;)

3] JASON ALDEAN + MIRANDA LAMBERT + FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE + TYLER FAR??

.......... Yes, pleaaaase! I like all those names. I found out a few weeks back that Jason Aldean's Burn It Down tour was scheduled to come to Cincinnati in July, and that tickets went on sale today. Luckily, I realized the gravity of that statement, because in Cincinnati, tickets like this have a shelf life of abouuuuut 1 hour, if that. I wasn't wrong. I managed to snag 2 on-field seats for Rob & me at 10:04 AM, and saw that the entire show had sold out by about 10:40 AM. It's gonna be a beautiful, beautiful mayhem.

to say i'm excited is an uuuuunderstatement.

4] FAMILY. REUNION.

Let me repeat that: FAMILY.... REUNION. No, it's not my actual family, but I can explain. A week or so back, Ali and I orchestrated plans for her, Tim and Damanji to make the trek from IL to our new place here in Cincinnati to hang for the weekend. TODAY, I had a conversation with Marianne today that very quickly turned into the realization that she is ALSO free that weekend, and thus will be driving in from VA to join us.

omg. ooooooh....my.... gaahhhhhhhshhhhh..

The reason this is so phenomenal is because these four individuals are some of the best, hilarious friends I found in Illinois, and to have us all back together at the same time seems just too good to actually be happening. Among the other debachles I'm sure we'll find, there will absoLUTELY be an updated take of the awkward family photo. Not sure what that is? Well... here's the last one:

this.. just... this.

Is it MARCH yet?! I need to see these faces. There will be some shenanigans ensuing, without a doubt, but I... can't.... WAIT.

5] DOUBLE DINNER DATES! 

I'm not entirely sure what I did for the first half of this month, let alone the whole month of January. Whatever it was, it didn't include nearly enough facetime with Catie, so we decided last week that we'd get together tonight for dinner. It happened. It... happened.

how. i. love. her.

Rob & I met Catie & Andy at The Hitching Post, which was our first choice. When we realized they were closed [sorta?], we switched gears and landed at Allyn's. Goooood call (: It's actually the first real double dinner date Rob & I have done since he moved here, so it was undoubtedly a great time all the way around.

man oh man.. i love him.

And the food wasn't anything to shame, either!

sugar snap peas & salmon? sold.

If this is any indication on how the rest of the weekend is going to go, then we're in for a fun couple of days!

Tomorrow = Pinterest hack/tutorial [hopefully] on some wall art I planned today as an early Valentines Day gift to Rob and our little home. I'm pretty excited, and crossing my fingers that I don't botch it too bad.

See ya then!

xo | cmd