Xapa to the World

Author: xapatotheworld

  • Birthday and Recipe

    So, Friday was my birthday! Yippee! Last year to be in my twenties and I’m starting it out right – married! Such a different way of life than I’m used to, but I’m loving every minute of it. Except when the Huz is working 3rds and I have to sleep by myself. That part isn’t so much fun.

    But back to the birthday.

    A day early, my dad stopped by my work to give me a gift from him and my step-mom. It was very appropriate for me. in fact, I believe I remember seeing a similar one elsewhere, perhaps at the Cox Arboretum gift shop.

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    Sadly, I had to work most of the day Friday. But when Huz got home, he had brought flowers and my gifts in. They were pretty fab gifts. It’s like he knows me or something.

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    Yep, that’s birdseed and a bat house. I absolutely cannot wait to get the bat house and the “Space available” sign up. I love bats so much. Now, don’t go thinking that I’m crazy or anything. Bats are incredibly helpful! One North American Brown Bat can eat a pound of mosquitoes EACH night! I don’t know about you, but I can’t stand mosquitoes. That automatically puts them up on the list. Although, spiders are good for mosquito catching…but spiders don’t have sweet little, almost puppy-like faces.

    You cannot tell me that that face isn’t cute 🙂

    We have to find a good place for the house. They like high locations with easy access and in direct sunlight for most of the day (they like it hot in their homes…probably another reason why I like them some much). I think I’ll need to call the OSU Extension office here soon. Besides, I have to figure out what we’re going to do with our weeping cherry tree.

    Saturday is a free day. Huz will be sleeping until about 3 and then we can run around and go see a movie, maybe buy me a new computer (we have leftover wedding money) – one with a number pad…and Microsoft Office. Sigh…that would be so nice. It’s my excuse for not putting together a house budget yet. Maybe I should postpone a little longer….hmm.

    Oh, Thursday night, I decided I wanted to bake and make the house smell yummy. I picked up some strawberries and came home to get started. The plan was to make strawberry muffins, but that quickly changed into a strawberry loaf. Same concept, just wanted to break in the new Pampered Chef stone loaf pan we got as a gift. I’m so glad I did. It turned out super yummy. Because it was muffin batter, it was a little dense (think Amish friendship bread) but it was great and when lathered with a layer of cream cheese….yum!

    I had some friends request the recipe I used, so here it goes. The “putting together” part is a little tricky, but I haven’t had a bad batch using this method. I’ll put the instructions for the muffins or the loaf.

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    Strawberry (or other fruit) Muffins or Loaf

    IngredientsIMG_20130614_214955

    Wet
    1 cup milk
    1 egg
    1/3 cup vegetable oil
    1/2 tsp vanilla (optional)

    1 cup chopped fruit

    Dry
    2 cups all-purpose flour
    2 tsps baking powder
    1/2 cup sugar
    1/8 or 1/4 tsp salt
    1/2 tsp cinnamon (optional…but always recommended!)

    Directions

    1. Preheat oven to 400*F (205C) for muffins or 375*F (191C) for a loaf.
    2. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners. If making a loaf, grease the inside of the pan (stone pans don’t need to be greased unless they haven’t been used often).
    3. In a small bowl, combine the wet ingredients (oil, milk, egg, vanilla). Beat lightly.
    4. In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, cinnamon).
    5. Toss in fruit and coat with dry mixture.
    6. Pour wet mixture into the dry and stir together.
    7. Spoon batter into cups or pour into loaf pan.
    8. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Tops should bounce back from touch. If making a loaf, bake for about 45-50 minutes. Use a toothpick to determine if the center is finished baking.

    Here are a couple of variations to consider:

    * For a crunchy top, sprinkle sugar over batter before baking. It’s important you do it before you bake…it just doesn’t work if it’s after. Trust me. *facepalm*
    * For a sweeter top, spread raw honey over the top of muffins after baked (still warm). I haven’t done this with the loaf, but I imagine that it would taste about the same. Love that raw honey!
    * Chunky Monkey Muffins – I made these in Japan and they were sooooo good! Substitute the whole cup of fruit with this mixture: 1/2 cup chopped banana and another 1/2 cup of small marshmallows, nuts (I think I used crushed walnuts), and mini chocolate chips (you’ll have a total of 1 cup fruit+extras, not a 1/2 cup for each of those items).

    Enjoy!

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    I’ll leave you with a couple other shots.

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    Isn’t she pretty? I still don’t have a name for her. I need a name people. Help a lady out here!

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    I think the best thing about having silverware all different colors is that when I pull them out of the dishwasher, I can easily grab all of the same kind and put them away more quickly. And…it’s pretty to look at.

    Have a great rest of your weekend and, oh yeah, Happy Father’s Day!

  • Apricot Punch

    I decided to add a new roommate to our garden. The new office I work at has a sweet little outdoor nursery behind it and I couldn’t help but stop and peruse. I have tried to limit myself to annuals this year, since we’re planning to raise the garden beds in the front and in the back (don’t really know how long that will take us, though). The rose bush was a gift, the tickseed – I couldn’t do without, and there are some bulbs that I planted but will dig up once we get the ground moving.

    130611 flowersClockwise from top right: 1) Coleus flowers! I forgot that they had flowers. Sorta redeems them for their large oafish greenishness. 2) Rose #2 didn’t make it, so I pulled it out and replaced it with one of the tickseed plants. As you can see, it’s thriving!  3) Newest addition – Apricot Punch. It’s some sort of petunia, a “proven winner!”, and probably is supposed to hang from a basket, but I hope it will take to being a ground cover and fill in the gaps between my impatiens. 4) Rose #1 and Week 8! It’s gonna have white flowers!! I’m so excited.

    I took the remaining sunflower seed packets that we gave out as favors to our reception guests and handed them out at work. I even gave some to the customers and it was a lot of fun. I didn’t really care to have people congratulating me and asking all the questions – I’m not a huge fan of attention – but it was nice. I sure hope they grow! I’m going to plant mine soon and see how it goes. The key will be to keep them out of reach of the bunnies…challenge accepted!

    I was able to do a little bit of organizing and get some of our decorations from the reception that I planned to use in our home too. The Huz put together a lamp with shelves below it. Here is one level.

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    I love our unity candle and *those birds!* Sweet little things from Michaels for less than $5. The M is from Michaels and painted with acrylic. I will be putting together a list of the Etsy vendors we used for the wedding soon. If you are desperate to know where the candle or the stand came from, feel free to ask. I’ll have to wrangle the name up.

    Also, you should know about this stuff.

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    I love caramel. I love tea. I love bedtime tea. This stuff is amazing. The smell is glorious. The Huz says that it smells like Christmas, and I’d have to agree. Here are the ingredients.

    California poppy plant extract, chamomile flower, rooibos leaf, chicory root, skullcap leaf, nutmeg kernal, cinnamon bark, stevia leaf, cardamom seed, ginger root, clove bud, black pepper.

    It puts me right in that happy place before falling asleep. Go. Enjoy. And sleep sweetly.

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  • Homeymoon!

    We don’t have many pics from the wedding just yet. People were very gracious with not taking photos during the ceremony, and our hired photographer has been very busy, what with it being wedding season and all. We do have one preview from her and a few others though to share. Also, I apologize for the pics being stacked one after another; I didn’t have time to edit them into multi-images.

    meandlanna sadiepreviewFirst Dance - Lanna cake

    Isn’t that fun? I am dying to see more photos!! Honestly, pins and needles here.

    We decided not to spend a great deal of money right off the bat (especially with all the money we spent on the wedding) and so we stayed put and had what we are calling, a Homeymoon. We didn’t go anywhere, get away from The House or anything, didn’t put any major time constraints on ourselves. And it was glorious! This was my first time living in The House and it was nice to get acclimated to the territory. Plus, I was exhausted. Very wiped out.

    We were instructed to open our cards the very next day (well, at least one of them) and discovered a gift card to Ruth’s Chris Steak House in downtown Cincinnati, a note of a reservation made for the next night, and tickets to the Reds game! It was our first time out of The House, since I had stocked us up with food. We really didn’t need to leave just yet. We had a blast. We got an appetizer of veal-stuffed ravioli. So wonderfully good! I got lamb chops for my main course and Matt got the steak filet. It was very upper-crust and way pricier than we would ever have done ourselves. They knew we had just got married too, so they came and chatted with us quite a bit, put rose petals on the table and gave us a complimentary dessert!

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    The seats to the Reds game were pretty amazing too – just about 100 ft from 1st base. We only ever go if the tickets are free, or if there’s a large group of friends going and we’re sitting in the cheapo nosebleed section. They won, too! That doesn’t normally happen when I come to a game so that was a very nice treat!

    130608 redsgameWe also went to Target and picked up a bunch of the bigger items we had wanted, but didn’t get in gifts. We now have a pretty good amount of storage in the bathroom and have most of our kitchen supplies and bed linens. It’s been great getting everything put together. Another great was checking out with $740 worth of stuff and only having to pay $40 above what the gift cards would pay for. We definitely made out like bandits! And Matt was excited because he had things to put together. 🙂

    The only other big outing we did was to the Cincinnati Museum Center. The original plan was to go to the zoo, but it was raining cats and dogs. By the time we got downtown, we thought that was enough wildlife for the day and decided to romp around indoors.  130608 unionterminal02130608 unionterminal01130608 butterfliesThey are showing a special on the monarch butterfly at the Omnimax. It was really beautiful. They did a preview of the dinosaur show coming up, but there’s not much to report on that except for the baby in the third row’s reaction. She kept crying and saying, “Bye bye! Bye bye!” lol. Sad that the mom did leave with her right after the film started; I think she would’ve liked it once it got started, but I’m glad she wasn’t in there crying the whole time.

    We also went up to Tower A where they used to control all of the many trains that went through the terminal. I love the art deco appearance of the building, but it was completely functional in its day. Now, there are still trains that come through, but not nearly the same volume. The tower has some really cool artifacts and an incredible view!

    130608 trainsThe Huz and I love learning about how things work and the more technical and mechanical, often, the better! There were some really fun vehicles that would drive over the rail cars and pick them up then rush all over the place, sometimes putting them on a truck load. The guy driving was suspended way above the ground and it was crazy how fast they could drive!

    130608 unionterminal03I love this city. Cincinnati breathes home to me and even though the highway system drives me nuts, I love driving into it and seeing that familiar skyline. I’m so glad that we chose to have a Homeymoon and spend time around the city and in our home.

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