just in case

anyone forgets the real reason for the season, see below.

New beginnings... (GAY!)

I got a new position in the Kingston office! I officially passed along my scheduling duties to Alexandra (DC co-worker) and moved into the legislative department. I am very excited! As some of you may have heard, I was planning to go back to school. Jack made a deal with me though that if I stayed, I could move to leg. So my crazy work stories will not be coming to an end, my friends. There are many more "Jack forgot his pants" sagas to come. Oh the joy...

ch-ch-ch-changesss

hello my dear friends!

so i have not read or posted on here for quite a while- mostly because this past month and a half has been NUTS! for real. Davey and I have been going non-stop trying to chew the insanely large bite that would took when we a) went into the air force, b) at Christmas time and c) procrastinated til the very end. In our last 3 1/2 weeks, we managed to:
go on 2 cabin weekend trips

have 3 going away parties,
1 Early Christmas

sing in 1 Christmas choir concert, pack up and move our entire house into storage and move me into my parents (we did this during the last 6 days). I'm not sure how we did it! So anyways, now that things are calming down and I'm on the latter side of the craziness, reading your Christmasy posts has been wonderful.

A few thoughts about your posts:
1) Al-Pal I am currently wearing those same pajama pants as I sit here and write, but am not, thankfully, making that beautiful expression. that picture is ridiculous! haha
2) Ellyn, I really enjoyed your post about Christmas being what you make it no matter where you are or who you're with, especially with Davey having just left.
3) Ellyn (again), your apartment looks beautiful! I love the blue ornaments hanging. Also, can we talk about the diet coke can ornament wearing ear muffs? I was standing in Cracker Barrel a week and a half ago (in Gatlinburg, no less) and saw this exact same ornament and thought that I wanted to buy that for you for Christmas. Then I thought it would be too hard to get to Cairo in one piece, so I scratched that idea and bought one for my friend Aaron who is also addicted to Diet Coke. Anyways, that cracked me up that you already own it.


So far I'm doing well with Davey's departure, aside from a 30-45 minute crying session right before, during, and after we said goodbye. It is suprisingly hard to drive home on icy and snowy roads with tears blurring your vision :) hehe. But I haven't cried since and I think that's a good start. I got to talk to him yesterday and he said the minute they got off the plane they were being called dumb-asses. Awesome.

I'll post more later when I have time, but in case any of you are interested (not that you would be)- I'll give you Davey's address so that if you feel like writing him for Christmas or just some encouraging words you can. Here it is (it's a little cryptic if you ask me- maybe you're used to addresses like this Ellyn?haha):

AB Hibbett, David K
326 TRF/ FLT 150 (Dorm B-7)
1320 Truemter Street Unit 361014
Lackland AFB, TX 78236-6096

Oh and I think I haven't told y'all that I got a new job! Which I also started during the last 3 weeks. I am now a nanny for 1 precious little 9 month old named Braden. Here he is!

His family is a military family that's temporarily separated- dad lives at Fort Bragg while the mom is finishing up her graduate studies in biological sciences at Vanderbilt. She is currently purifying proteins, etc. etc (does that mean anything to you becca? haha). Anyways, the work is way more relaxing (read: easy) and I am getting paid $3 more an hour and working 50 hours a week. and I'm working for a woman that knows what it's like to be separated from your husband. pretty awesome.

Alright! Love to you all and Merry Christmas!!

have yourself a merry little christmas.

so i got to thinking about my absolute favorite Christmas song the other night (see post title) and realized there's wisdom in the lyrics. on top of it being my favorite remixed tune on the infamous "Christmas remixed" album that jane patton purchased in walgreens and then bestowed upon olivia and i (and that i still listen to every winter), i also think that it means you can make Christmas merry no matter where you are or who you're with or what is going on in your life. so in that spirit, here's my attempt at making Christmas in Cairo merry and full of cheer. a tree is possibly in the works. more on that later.



"have yourself a merry little Christmas..."



"let your heart be light..."



"faithful friends who are dear to us.."



"gather near to us, once more..."

okay, so we're not gathered near this year in real life. but let's me telepathically/Christmas spritedly/secret nantahellya santed-ly tied together. okay? greeaaaattt.

love you all. miss you much.
e.e.

me, i want a hula hoop

oh hello. been a while, huh? sorryyyy. however. alison's post of the wise street tree motivated me to plog about the christmas tree decorating party i went to last night at my coworker's house. she and her boyfriend bought a tree and provided food and drinks on the condition that the guests provided crafty decorations for the tree. and by crafty she wanted tacky. and by tacky we (the ones that work in the lab at least) thought of lab materials.

(LED christmas lights look blue...)

so in my hunt for what to make, i decided on a string of icicles made of pipette tips strung together with floss. (for your reference on current and new pipette technology)

(maxine made the beautiful microtubes with labeling stickers.)

the night was fun and the food was good. got me even more into the christmas spirit. boston is great this time of the year because pretty much every square is decorated with lights. makes me miss athens though. clayton st. was so beautiful. ahhh nostalgia. what a word. what an emotion.

well in my hunt for a picture of athens at christmas time, i delved into the depths of my photo albums. i unfortunately failed at finding a good picture. on the other hand, i found this video. it was a little after the 5 (6) golden rings escapade, hence the hula hoop:

i love you all!

"Santa's gonna come and make you mine" M.Carey

Whaaattttt uppppp laaadddiieiesssss!!

In the spirit of all things Christmas-sy, I wanted to share this picture of our beautiful stumpy Christmas tree at Wise St. It is near and dear to our hearts, and I thought y'all would enjoy seeing it, as well.



Sooo, then I was thinking back to all of our wonderful Christmases spent together and my mind wondered back to Sophomore year Christmas morn in Apt.1. I was the Valentine slayer in all hawt pink and red pj's. We took some really good family photos......BUUUTTT the real winner that Christmas was our very own Wanda Wamp. How could we ever forget this gem of a pic...

Just know that I love you all so very much and I wish nothing more than sharing another Christmas morn with all of us present.

Misssss y'alll lotzzzz!! Love and Love 4-eva--- Al Pal

p.s. Everyone go and youtube Mariah Carey's new Christmas hit, "Oh Santa!" . It can never replace "All I want for Christmas", but it dang sure is catchy- Mariah always comes through for the holidays

Four...

4 Things that have made me think of yall lately:

1. Heard someone say "pooty tang" the other day--and remembered the story of the woman in vision video.

2. Had the most amazing turkey burger + sweet potato fries... come visit and you can try it.

3. (shout out to becca)-- I was looking at some pretty amazing holiday desserts and wish we were all back in poplar and you were stressed (not that I want you to be...but) and you were making yummy desserts!

4. and obviously as the holidays near how could I forget the 6 golden rings!?!?

love and miss yall!

oh and kaylyn, the day you posted about being snowed in.... it was 81 degrees and humid here. yeah hot!

Ok and finally, Austin and I went to new orleans the other day for a day trip. There are some real cool places there--especially a street called magazine street with ton of cool stores that are very green. I had a delicious po'boy too...

come visit cajun country!!

Winter Wonderland in Downtown Seattle

And the snow begins! As some of you might already know, Seattle got hit by a huge winter storm Sunday night and all day Monday. No one predicted it would be this bad. This photo is looking outside my balcony at the courtyard Monday morning. It snowed like this almost all day Monday. The temperature dropped so much that most of snow turned into ice. Because no one knew it would get this bad, no one closed businesses or schools early. Ive been watching the news and people are saying that their commute thats usually takes 30 to 45 minutes took 9 to 12 hours!!! People who left work at 4pm didnt get home till 2am!!! A lot of people abandoned their cars on the interstate and tried to walk home. Gah, that just sucks. This is basically the only time Im thankful I dont have a job. This kind of thing usually isnt this bad because the city can prepare, but the snow plows and salt trucks were stuck in traffic with everyone else. The city asked people not to go to work today if they have to drive there. So people ended up walking miles to get to work, and some people skied to work!

Anywho, like yall know, still no job. I literally have been applying to everything. I really believed I would have one by now. Ah well, it will work out. Im trying not to get too worried. Theres not really anything more I can do, just keep applying. Also I was totally excited to cook a huge Thanksgiving dinner for myself and Jordan. I had everything planned out and recipes ready, but then the snow hit. We cant get out to the store. Some of the main streets are ok but our garage is on a STEEP hill thats cobblestone and its still covered in ice. When I was here last last Christmas, Jordan and I were snowed in for days and days. We finally tried to get out, and everything went well till we tried to get down the hill to the garage and we lost control and slid into the side of our building. So.... we wont be getting out for awhile. We were gonna try and walk, but even the sidewalks are covered with ice. So we wont be having an amazing Thanksgiving dinner. I have another idea, so I hope it will work, but who knows. Haha.

Welp, thats about it with me. I am excited because mom and dad are coming for Christmas. So that will be fun! Course people are predicting that this winter might be the worst Seattle has seen in CENTURIES!!! So we might be snowed in while they are here. Which will still be fun, just to be with family:)


This is the entrance to the downtown sculpture park 1 block from my building. It overlooks the sound.
This is also the sculpture park. Its such a great place to go watch the sunset.... at 4:15pm! It gets so dark so fast!
My building is on the right side of the photo. Its at the very edge (sort of cant even see it) oops. But yall get the idea.
Tehe. Love you guys and miss yall like crazy!!!!

(i need a clever title).

Hellllllo friends. Since I am sure you all have been reading my minute by minute life blog, all of this mumbo gumbo will be old news (don't worry, you aren't missing anything. i don't have a blog).

For starters, I had a fabulous three week long birthday! The weekend of the 5th, Al-pal and I went on a Anthro shopping spree (compliments of Donna). The next weekend, Donna came into town. AND last night, Al and Mae cooked a wonderful dinner for our roommate celebration.

The day of my birthday, Mae and I picked Donna up from the airport and went to Three Fox winery. Our picnic consisted of turkey, goat cheese and pear sandwiches, sweet potato fries and chocolate oat bars (oh and of course the yummy wine!)

Last night, we had mushroom lasagna, vegetables and beer-margs with apple pie and ice cream. O to the M to the G, it was so good.

I am leaving you with Sadie's Halloween pic. The kid is so freakin' cute.

With that folks, my blog post is complete. Love. Love. Love.

good food + good beer = happy ellyn

herrroooo ladies. it's been WAY too long since i posted so here we go. a post full of food. i just got back from london yesterday morning after a great eid al adha (the hajj eid) break from work. it was so nice to get away from cairo and go to a civilized, western country for the week. the two things i was most excited about? good beer and pork. does that make me an alcoholic pig lover? maybe. but seriously. the beer here is shady at best, but drinkable. and there is no pork. anywhere. so yeah. i guess absence makes the heart grow fonder. madeline and i had a great time. her friends were awesome and i had so much fun seeing matt sellers (Aaron's ex-boyfriend and my fellow Roosevelt board member), who came in from oxford (he's studying abroad with UGA's program) for the day.



we stayed with madeline's friend jon the first 3 nights and he, his girlfriend, and their friend greeted us with avocado cocktails (so good) and this delicious vegetarian soup. so good.






ate the most delicious pecan pastry from this lady's booth at the brick lane market. then she let me take pictures cause i asked nicely. what a gal.



okay, so this isn't food but it is the blues club where we spent a lot of time and enjoyed great cask ales and a freaking awesome house band and HILARIOUS open mic/jam night that included several japanese tourists playing awesome blues music and a crazy canadian lady that was terrible. win.

i love you guys, miss all of your faces, and can't wait to talk to each of you soon. skype dates? yes please.

someone stole my grocery cart...

hey...

we have internet!! skype or ichat with you lovely ladies would be quite enjoyable!

Also, on monday at approximately 10:45, my grocery cart with about 10-15 things in it was stolen. I left it on one aisle for like 30 seconds. Upon my return, the grocery cart was NOwhere in sight. So some lady or gentlemen jacked my grocery cart... seriously?? classless. Welcome to cajun country!

Thought yall would enjoy that.

miss and love yoooou!

HEY ladiez in DC

Hey yall!

Just wanted to also say how sad I am that I am not seeing all of yall's faces.. I with, wanda and ellyn, am sad I can't be with yall...but am so glad yall can be together! have a blast (obviously you will)... rock out a dance partttay for me! I'll be thinking of yall as I work through the night friday... please post pics...

love and miss yall!

shaved head

ellyn, i enjoyed that last blog post...and i am totally in support of blogging at work!

in other news, thought i would post a picture of davey's shaved head on here so that you could all see. here we are, sitting on the couch, taking a break from watching 30 rock (on a side note: i can't get enough of 30 rock. it makes me laugh so hard!) do y'all watch it??

anyway, there's the picture! i hope you all are doing well. i miss you dearly and can't wait to hear some stories from the girl's weekend this weekend! i know it will be a blast and i am sad to miss it.

well, i'm off to eat lunch with Bracey which i am SO excited about- i haven't seen her in quite a while! she's currently in nursing school and i think it is consuming all of her time!

lurve you all!

oh herro.

hey kids. just a quick update cause i'm at work and probably shouldn't be blogging but eh, ya know.

i think i told some of y'all this but maybe not everyone. i started going to a small group that's part of a church out here and have been really encouraged by just even the process of seeking it out and going once. tonight is the second night and i'm really pumped to go back and continue establishing relationships with the group. the group is really diverse, people anywhere from 22-35, some married, some not, working at anywhere from the CDC and the American Embassy to the Singapore Embassy and different schools across the city.

it's been really neat to see God bring together his people from across the world (we have a guy from Singpore, a girl from the UK, a guy from India, a girl from Colombia, and obviously some Americans) to a place where they can talk honestly about the gospel and what He's doing here. it's also just been nice to be able to have some fellowship and spend some time in prayer each week with others.

also, the word "grace" has been on my mind a lot these past couple weeks. thinking about how to be gracious towards others, what it means to be receiving grace from God, and how we can feel grace lifting off guilt and shame that we carry. not really sure why it's been in everything i've been doing, but it's been pretty clear to me that it's something i a) need to appreciate and understand more and b) something i don't show enough of. just wanted to share with y'all (c:

so yeah, impromptu blog post. maybe divinely inspired. was that blasphemous? i don't know anymore. i love you all. heartz from cairo.

WHO did you leave her with?

Well, all is normal at the Wise Street house.

Luvs ya.

...and I felt a pinch on my panty-band

What up.  How crazy that it's midway through October and we're only a couple weeks away from Girls Weekend!  So things have been pretty good lately- I'm liking the fall-ish weather and I feel much more comfortable at Langley School and getting around DC in general.  

The highlights from the past little while are- dear Al-Pal turned 23.  We got a group of friends to go bowling in "Chinia"-town (bonus points to BHS grads if you can name that reference).  It was ridiculous & fun, & we went out after.  

Al showing off her bowling class skrills.

Rachel, Whit, Al, and I went out for Ethiopian food the other night!  We asked the waitress everything that we should order, and she did us right.  It was so good and flavorful...and fun to eat with your hands.  

Hannah came to visit Columbus Day weekend!  It was lots of fun- we walked around, shopped Eastern Market (where we tried on those ridic alpaca hats & the man that worked there told us we looked 'so good, we needed to buy them'.....(false)), ate good food, drank fall-esque beers, & just saw the sights.  

Baked & Wired.  A coffee and baked goods place in Georgetown that is de-ricious.  Strawbrerry cupcake : )  DC's version of Ike & Jane. 

I love yous all!

i'm showing signs of ambition and other groundbreaking news...

Y'all. This has been a pretty big week for me! And I'm so excited to tell you about it. Seeing as I have to get up in 7 hours this will be short and sweet for now and I'll fill you in on more of the details a little later.

So for a few months Davey and I have been brainstorming ideas for a side project/business that I could try to start up. The hope is that I could get something going that would eventually be successful, maybe even a source of income, as we begin moving around with the air force and as I start trying to have kiddos (don't worry, not happening anytime soon- but it doesn't hurt to plan ahead!!)

So one of my favorite ideas that we came up with was scavenging thrift stores and yard sales for cute vintage items and then attempting to sell them online. Well, for the past few months I've been contemplating it in my head, procrastinating and only thinking about it, not really planning on doing anything with it soon. But something happened this week and I said "You know what, Wanda, you're gonna do this" haha. So I've been collecting items at a break-neck speed and spending all hours not spent at my full-time job taking pictures and uploading to Etsy.

Now I realize that 1/2 the world is trying to have a business like this on Etsy...but hey, it never hurts to try!! Go check it out. I think y'all will really like the stuff I've found (some of my favorites are in the pictures above). I even discovered that I have a good eye for this sort of thing and scored a couple of collector's items!!

Alright so I'm rambling and this is no longer short and sweet, but please go check out my shop and tell all your friends about it! I'll need support from all of yall to get this thing off the ground. I'm also going to be doing some Facebook promo stuff, so you'll see that soon too!

My shop is called Finch Finds and you can find it by clicking that link or by going to www.finchfinds.etsy.com

#2 groundbreaking news...Davey shaved all his hair off yesterday and HOLY CRAP! This military thing is really setting in now. Honestly, I almost cried when he walked through the back door, but it's already growing on me already hahah. I'll post pictures soon...

I LOVE YOU ALL!!

Love comes to those who believe it & that's the way it is

So I lose at blogging. I'm the worst. I think it's cause I feel like I have to write a long & detailed post with pics and all. I'm giving up on that ambition so hopefully I'll write more!

The main reason for this post is to update you all on mine & Andrew's future plans. I think most of you know that we've been thinking seriously about doing mission work for a couple of years. Well, It's slowly becoming more & more of a reality--which is crazzzy. It started about 2 months ago after our friend Harrison Ford (yes, thats really his name) tried to convince us to come to Romania where he is now based with MTW. We really didn't have a desire to be in Braslov, Romania, but it did help to plant the seed in our minds. Since then, we have narrowed our options to Western Europe, a big city & spanish-speaking place. That led us to Madrid, Spain--where, ironically enough, my good friend growing up John Dewitt's parents are the team leaders! Anyway we've been in correspondence with them some & Andrew spoke with MTW yesterday about starting the preliminary paperwork & stuff. We have no clue what all this is going to look like...there are so many hoops to jump through before we can even begin to start raising support. And for all we know, after interviews & applications, they could say that they want us somewhere totally different. We have been encouraged in our thinking about Spain, though, based on our interests in city ministry, my art, Andrew's music, etc.

SO all that to say please pray for us as we start this process. There is a week of orientation in early March that we want to try & make it to...& we have to have an invite from a team 3-ish months prior to March...meaning basically by end of December, early January we must know where we're going!

We're really excited, but also pretty nervous as well--we're confident that this is where the Lord is leading us. Anyway, just thought i'd give y'all a quick update. Please kind of keep this to yourself...It's fine to say that we're thinking about missions, but it's kind of an awkward thing to not know where we're going & I don't want people in Nashville to think that we're def going to Spain, etc. Just the other day, Missy Cargo came up to me in the art school & said she heard we were moving to Spain...wtf. Apparently Andrew's mom & Mrs Cargo had been talking. You get my drift. Anyway, I love you all and miss you all lots...and for those who will be in D.C.--I can't wait to see youu!!! I'm so pumped. Okay lerve all you gals...

the leaves are changing...

but not here. sadly, there aren't too many leaves here and they're more of a palm frond variety. but i digress. sorry i haven't been too active in the blog-o-sphere, either on here or on my personal blog. it's been a long couple of days and honestly, i'm starting to get the shock a little bit. "the shock", as the egypterns have so lovingly deemed it, can also be called "medina rage" (medina being the arabic word for city or market) but is basically just culture shock that makes you want to freak out. while i'm loving cairo and am so glad i'm here, there's some things that are just hard to adjust to and some days are worse than others. so in order to harness this negative feeling and have a cathartic experience, i thought i'd detail some things that bring on the shock for me personally.

1. an egregious lack of real diet coke. so this one's pretty obvious. we all know i'm obsessed with diet coke and it just simply doesn't exist in large enough quantities here. please see my facebook wall photo for an example of what is unacceptable.

2. my work computer. i wish i was joking when i said that my computer at work crashes almost every 30 minutes. like total melt-down crashes. this becomes a problem when i have 2 drafts of a speech i'm writing for the president of AUC and i lose them both. fml. this brings me to another point.

3. cairo time. unfortunately not a reference to the new motion picture. cairo time is how long everything takes to get anywhere or to get anything accomplished in cairo. so my computer problem is on the way to being fixed, meaning our assistant ordered me a new one and it was supposed to get here september 30th. it is now october 12th. let's get real. additionally, this applies to cairo being worst planned city in terms of infrastructure. 22 million people + their cars + insufficient roadways = traffic. all the time. imagine standstill traffic in atlanta but everyday. everywhere. it's stellar. and finally, this applies to people. in the real world you can email someone who has information you need and they email you back in an appropriate amount of time (in a really busy office environment, like 2 days max- we're talking people that work on the same team here)...in cairo time, this translates to 2 weeks.

4. coffee. there's no such thing as good ole american coffee here. okay, i'm lying. you can find coffee beans that need to be ground and then french pressed at the super market. one certain one by my house. BUT in terms of buying coffee. it just doesn't taste right. and you guys know i don't drink a ton of coffee, but when i wake up at 5:30am to get to work by 8:30 and there's no suitable diet coke, i gotta have something. this lack of beans has resulted in a few grumpy/groggy mornings at best.

5. staring/catcalling. these 2 are a toss up. i can't decide which is more obnoxious, it may depend on the day. so men in the streets will cat call you (which can sometimes be entertaining) especially in the markets. some of my favorites "let me take your money from you quickly" and "i like your hair". however, the women will just stare at you like you're a street walker. and that, i think, is way more uncomfortable. i suppose it's cause i'm dressing like a hussy. but i mean, i gotta be me, ya know?

6. ice. or lack there of. this goes for europe, too. just a lack of ice in drinks in general. i love a good, cold, iced drink. does not exist here.

alright, even i'm getting tired of complaining via the interwebs. overall, i'm obviously loving being over here. but i'm an american and i love america. and that, my friends, won't change...even for the most open-minded of individuals.

i'll follow up this post with the things i love most about cairo to give some perspective later this week.

love you all.

working with the oldies!

Exciting news... I officially started work this week! Sat through 3 days of pure computer training, which was not my favorite thing. I had my first 12 hr shift on the floor yesterday. It was super busy and flew by. I am thankful for a job and it was cool to turn to austin last night and be like saaahweeet i made money today--instead of doing work and writing a paper about it later!! I am definately beginning to realize I am not in school and I LIKE it! i had an awesome patient yesterday...he was old(as most of my patients are). I walk into his room and check out his haircut--yes it was a mohawk! I've never seen an 80 year old with a gray mohawk and I have to say it was hilarious! I wish it was legal to take pictures of my patients, but unfortunately it is not. anyway, please be praying for us next week as I'll work my first shifts on night with my preceptor and actually will work 3 in a row, which might kill me (tues,wed, thurs night). so pllease pray for me as i switch over... i'll let you know what it's like to be nocturnal.

all else is well here... and it actually is cooling off some days!

miss and love each of you

i'll have the cape cod with a side of chocolate please

Oh herro there. I hope everybody is super duper. Everything is going well up here in Boston. Last night was probably the first cold night reaching a brisk low of 52 approximately around 1:17 in the am. (I know that because I passed by one of those electronic signs that gives the date, time, temp when I was walking home last night...) Anywhoozle. This past week I had a lab retreat in Falmouth, MA which is one of the islands in Cape Cod.

The view from the hotel was gorgeous. It was right on the beach and pretty secluded. Since it was the end of September and the middle of the week, not many people were there so we sort of had the place to ourselves and a handful of other people. I am not going to lie, the retreat sort of overloaded me on science, but I enjoyed dinner and getting to know my boss and the people in the lab outside of the work setting. I still am just very thankful that Sean (the bizoss) was so generous to do that for us.

ALSO. I thought I would post a recipe that I recently tried out with my friend Katie. I have lately discovered smitten kitchen, and I lurve it. So being a girl and having what girls have every month, chocolate seemed appropriate. Thus, we chose these: Chocolate toffee cookies. I will post the recipe here, but this woman's pictures are totally better than mine so check out the link.

Chocolate Toffee Cookies

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 pound bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, chopped

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

1 3/4 cups (packed) brown sugar

4 large eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

5 1.4-ounce chocolate-covered English toffee bars (such as Heath), coarsely chopped*

1 cup walnuts, toasted, chopped

Flaky sea salt for sprinkling (optional)

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in small bowl; whisk to blend. Stir chocolate and butter in top of double boiler set over simmering water until melted and smooth. Remove from over water. Cool mixture to lukewarm.

Using electric mixer, beat sugar and eggs in bowl until thick, about 5 minutes. Beat in chocolate mixture and vanilla.

Stir in flour mixture, then toffee and nuts. Chill batter until firm, about 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment or waxed paper. Drop batter by spoonfuls onto sheets, spacing two inches apart. Sprinkle with a pinch of flaky sea salt, if you’re using it. Bake just until tops are dry and cracked but cookies are still soft to touch, about 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on sheets. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature.

Also, I left out the walnuts. However, I must warn you. These are extremely chocolatey. But they definitely get the job done.

Alright. Love to all and to all... love? Yeah that works.

Over and out!

Storks and Morons

Storks:

Good news! My brother and Shannon are having another baby. There is a bit of a family drama circulating about them not being married yet but tomato, tomahto, what can ya do? Kids will be kids. In the meantime though, we are getting another baby!!

Morons:

Read this in a NYTimes article today. It made me laugh, "The view is not the only thing that worries Mr. Thompson, 62. In April, he dressed up in a bird’s costume with pink Wellington boots to protest against the turbines and their danger to the rare pink-footed goose the region is also famous for." You tell em' Mr. Thompson!! Ah, heroes today... Where would we be without the "Mr. Thompsons" of the world?

Duplex...

well, updates from LA...

1. it is NOT fall here. so Im jealous of those in cooler places (which is everyone but maybe ellyn??...what's the forecast in egypt?). Today it is 88 but "feels like" 94 degrees. I swear I sweat all day everyday. So i'm looking real forward to fall!

2. Ashley, Austin's bro is here for a visit. which makes me want yall to come visit reallly soon.

3. you will neeeever believe what street I drove past today and totally did a double take cause I didn't even believe it--oh girl, you know it's poplar! When yall come visit, we are straight up going to steal that sign!

4. As I mentioned when girl's weekend was being tossed around that it was slim chances I'd be coming due to lots of things. Well good news and bad. The good- I start my job October 4th and will begin bringin in dat dough. The bad-- that means that I have NO idea what my schedule will look like/when I'll be scheduled to work. since girl's weekend will fall just a few weeks later, i wont be able to "schedule off" that early in my career..ha. aaand With the transition from days to nights, aka as mary put it- becoming "nocturnal", I will not be in attendance this October. However, I already am looking at flight costs for possible a spring trip!!


5. Our duplex is slowly "coming together" and yes, we are beginning to be "settled"-whatever that means. We are really loving it here although I miss/love all of you and miss the milder whether of athens (never thought i'd say that)...we are learning to be content here and not to compare BR to Ath which can be a struggle at times. I am finding cool little quirky places here and can't wait to take yall to some of these places...one is a sushi bar in the middle of downtown that is located on the roof of a tall building--we can go get drinks and sit out on the open roof. another is a sweet lil upscale agora type placethat has awesome clothes/jewelry/accesories from past eras--it's called time warp. anyway, here's a pic of our duplex... we love it!


MISS YALL SO MUCH.... COME VISIT... we are ROCKIN out this blog and i <3 it!

It is fall, officially.

So.  In the past couple weeks, I've felt a little more settled into life up here.  DC is still aweshome, I'm now in my second week working with Langley School (k-8 private school where I'm an afterschool program counselor), and there's just a lot to do/ things to get involved with.  I've reached a point where I feel like I still have so much to go explore in DC, but I've now been here a month, and I'm starting to know my way around better and stuff.

All that to say, things are alright.  Now for a brief recap through pictures:

This was the first attempt made at a roomie pic.  Needless to say, we will be trying again.

The last two photos are from Becca's surprise visit to DC!  We had a picnic lunch of tomato, mozzarela, and spinach sandwiches on good, fresh french bread from La Madeleine, in Georgetown.  Sidenote: the weather's been so nice; we spent a long time just sitting by the Potomac.

Whit and I wandered to the National Cathedral one day a couple weeks back.  It was really cool walking around inside, the pictures don't really do it justice.

Well, yours truly did turn 23 a couple weeks ago.  The important thing to take away from that is the fact that Al and Whitney made me a delicious meal (and y'all know about the cake already...which was so good and despite it's appearance, only took us about 2.5 days to demolish).  They made me margaritas that were a variation from Porch Parties cookbook, because we decided to make them with mango!  Yum.  Dinner was homemade Philly Cheesesteak and baked potato wedges.  Altogether, it made such a good meal!

I'm loving reading everyone's posts and I get more and more excited about Girl's Weekend.  I love and miss y'alls.