Happy Birthday Mom

We had a party today for Mom's birthday, it was great to have everyone together! I made ribs and flan for the first time, they both came out really good...what a relief.


Rachel made her famous cake that takes hours of preparation and it was worth every minute...so moist and melty.


Ryan had fun roaming around the house, he doesn't come here too often so there's a lot to see and do in a short amount of time.


Stephanie came to PaRtY and she is great at talking to Grandma so we love having her company.


Grandma had some laughs with her great grandson


My favorite part was the decorations...I love a festive house!
And life is good!
Love Sandra

Reminiscing about Brimfield

I finally sorted through all the buttons I bought in July at the massive antique show in Brimfield MA! They are separated by color, grouped by style and strung on wire for easy access.


I realized we never blogged about our trip to Brimfield so here's a little recap of our time. Mom, Rachel and I were stricken with exhaustion from lack of sleep and extensive heat and sun exposure which led to uncontrollable laughter and tons of hilarious situations.

Like when our mom, wearing her new Bakelite Scotti Dog pin, found a linguine noodle in the bottom of her bowl of broccoli...


I laughed so hard I cried...



We had so much fun digging through piles of vintage table cloths, scavaging for deals on Pyrex and Stangl, and admiring all the beautiful things we could never afford.


I can't wait to go again next year!

Jamin' Out

This morning I woke up and ate a peach from a basket we got from the farmer's market on Saturday. It was so delicious that my knees actually gave out a little underneath me. I finished breakfast and put on a huge pot of water to boil because I knew right then, these were the jam peaches I'd been waiting for.

Oh but this guy was in the bag. His nose was so cute, he got spared from the jam pot. He's for breakfast tomorrow instead.

My jam came out pretty delicious, it tastes just like those fruit nectars you can buy in cans at the grocery store. The only problem is that it didn't set well. It's thick enough, but you'll need a spoon instead of a knife to get it onto your toast. I'm not sure what my problem is, but this is the 3rd jam I've made that hasn't set up for me. I followed a recipe, and used pectin to help it along, but no luck. I need to read a little more about it to figure out where I'm going wrong.

Only 6 lovely peaches and I got these three jars, plus one that's only half filled so I didn't can it... just stuck it right into the fridge for right-away-eating!

Hot Ride

So my car is at the dealership for some repairs and I got this awesome red Mustang convertible as my loaner car! My car wasn't ready to pick up yet so I get to cruise all over town in my hot ride this weekend too! Don't get me wrong, I think my Volvo station wagon is hot too but this is FUN!! Too bad its supposed to rain all day tomorrow :(

This is what happens when I ask Charlie to take my picture out the window...DOI!!!

School Days

Originally uploaded by coriander82

This is not a photo of me. This is how I feel already, after the first week of grad school. Man is there a lot of reading to do!!!

I'm taking a break at the library right now to get my nose out of the books for a moment and give my brain a rest. I'm taking four classes and they warned us that each class would demand about 8-10 hours of outside work per week. I thought they were kidding. They weren't!

Anyway, it's fun so far and I'm making new friends. I spent Labor Day at my friend's lake house again, and attempted to make this Zebra Cake that's been floating around all over the internet. Mine came out ok, but it was a little disappointing. I read on another site that the actual cake recipe wasn't that tasty, but I went ahead and used it anyway. This was true, there wasn't much flavor. I would make this again and use a different vanilla / chocolate cake recipe. My batter was also pretty thin. I assumed it was ok in order to get the rings to work correctly, but after a while they sort of melted together, and in the final product, the lines were so thin they had almost disappeared. On top of that, after 42 minutes in the oven, my cake was still a liquid mess. I left it in for an additional 15 minutes until a cake tester came out clean.

This recipe has huge potential. Not only does it have amazing serve-appeal (everyone says, "OOOH stripes!") but it'll also be super delicious if you make it with your favorite vanilla/chocolate cake recipes. I demand a do-over!

*edit: photos aren't on my laptop... oops! I'll post them when I get home.*