Secret ingredients

It is no secret that I love to bake. Love love love!! I like to experiment with my baking, or find different twists for classic recipes. In my next life I'm going to open a bakery...I think I'll call it 'That One Little Pie Shop'... and on my menu will be this triple berry & peach pie I just pulled out of the oven. It smells delicious (even though there was a bit of a cinnamon disaster). 

As an amateur baker, I am always open to baking tips and Pintrest is good...but gramma is better!

She told me that adding two tablespoons of vodka (yes, vodka) to the piecrust while mixing it will result in an extra light and flaky crust. I tried this little trick...and guess what? It worked!

Most piecrust recipes call for ice water, the particular recipe I used called for two tablespoons of H2O, I substituted the water for vodka, and added an additional teaspoon of water. 

Just another story caught up in another photograph I found

During crazy Christmas family extravaganza of 2010, the grown-ups decided to pull out a box of old pictures...which was so much fun.
Aside from a bunch of pictures of some really stern looking German people, (which my mom has been able to trace back to the mid 1800's), there were baby pictures of my mom and my uncles, photos that gave me insight to what my mom's life was like as a teenager (there were lots of sheep), and some precious shots of us cousins with the g'parents from way back in the diaper days!
I love sorting through old pictures, and I'm afraid that my generation has gotten so digital that my grandkids aren't going to have anything to sort through. 50 years from now when I have my own crazy family Christmas gatherings, they're just going to sit in front of my computer and click through thousands pictures. Plus, I'm not really sure that I want my grandkids to see all my pictures...
I love my digital camera and its convenience. No film + immediate results means I can take several versions of the same picture until I get the exact one I want, it's great!! But I think that there is something to be said of using an old 35mm (or whatever). Film definitely limits the amount of pictures you can take, but I think it also allows you to be more selective in your photography. For instance, do I really need to take 20 pictures of Sleeping Beauty's castle EVERY TIME I GO TO DISNEYLAND?? Probably not...
I'm sure with film cameras, there were quite a few moments missed, but there were also some significant moments captured.
I had my mom make some copies for me of a few pictures of my grandparents, and they are just so classic

This my grandparents leaving for their honeymoon, something about this picture reminds me of a couple of old fashioned movie stars being caught my the paparazzi!

And here's my grandpa!
When we were going through pictures and I commented about how handsome my grandpa was...my gramma's reply was "yeah he was"...oh, Gramma

We Are Family

I am home from crazy Christmas extravaganza and I can honestly say that this was probably one of the best Christmases of my life so far. Family, family, family!! Playing Wii, decorating the tree, playing cards, opening gifts, EATING, my goodness...so much food. Gramma doesn't let ANYONE go hungry.
To be completely honest, I was actually a little nervous going into this Christmas. Just because my mom's youngest brother lives so far north and doesn't travel very much (or really get that much time of work, as far as I know) so I was seeing a set of Knights that I hadn't seen in 7 years (the last time we were all at Gramma's for Christmas). I thought it was going to be a smidge awkward, since we don't have much in common. We're about the same age, but that's about it. They are hunters and they kill things and then eat them (in fact, my cousin Ryan's fiance made him squirrel stew out of a squirrel that he shot). We are past the days of hide and go seek and epic quadruple deck games of war...but y'know...family is family. Yeah, we don't have a ton in common in terms of day-to-day life, but we played Apples to Apples and 'Ultimate Go Fish' with the other set of Knights, aka the "little cousins" (the shortest of which, even though she's 13, is 5'7"...we're a tall family). It was a great day!!
Although, I am a little disappointed that there isn't much crazy to report on...

The answer is NO!

NO, Aunt Liz...I DON'T have a boyfriend yet and no I WON'T buy 'a push-up bra and a v-neck sweater'
NO, Gramma...I HAVEN'T met anyone and I'm NOT going to go flirt with random guys at the baseball game. (Also, they were Dodger fans anyway...and I'm pretty sure rooting for the Giants is part of my DNA)
Sorry, women of my family, that being single is something you feel like you need to cure me from. Trust me, it's not something I'm proud of. I wish I could be one of those girls who is a 'proud, single woman', but that's not me. I'm not saying that I feel like a need a man in my life, just that it hasn't been a picnic watching from the background while all my friends start to pair off and get married. It's seriously like Noah's freaking Ark...
I'm not proud that I was all but set up with a groomsman at a good friend's wedding a few months ago, only to watch said groomsman hit on one of the waitresses all night instead. (We were seated next to each other and the only single people at our table...it was painfully obvious what was going on, though he seemed painfully oblivious)
I'm not proud that I am apparently invisible to members of the opposite sex.
I'm not proud that I am usually in my jammies by 9pm on the weekends because I have nowhere to go and nothing to do.
I'm not proud that I have to go to movies alone because my friends have already seen them with their boyfriends/fiances/husbands.
I'm not happy that I am missing out on opportunities to hang out with my friends because I'll be the third, fifth or sometimes even seventh wheel.
These are actually some of the things that I lose sleep over.
Sometimes I think...'but, hey, I'm only 24...I've got time'. Then there are the times that I am reminded of how many married friends I already have. And that my mom was 24 when she got married. And then I think 'crap, I'm already 24 and I haven't been on a date for nearly 5 years' And then I think about how the only boyfriend I have ever had-the only guy who has ever given me a second look-has already been married for over a year.

Now I'm thinking that I'm probably too young to be labeled a spinster, but it's not entirely inappropriate...