Phew! What a whirlwind last month was! I hope everyone survived the holidays and at least made it out the other side mostly unscathed. Even if you haven’t thoroughly recovered (financially or mentally).
Justin and I spent Christmas with his family. We totally enjoy doing the one by one gift opening and seeing what everyone gets (though it does take all morning, I love it). After eating a big turkey dinner, we played Hallmark bingo.
For those not familiar with the game, you fill the spaces with things that would happen in a Hallmark movie instead of numbers. You watch a Hallmark (or a facsimile thereof) movie, and as things happen in the movie; you fill in the spaces. The spaces can say things like “Interrupted kiss” or Making cookies” or someone saying “Just like mom!” I got the idea from a co-worker. We originally anticipated someone having a bingo every 15-30 minutes, but that turned into an hour and a half before anyone got a bingo. Everyone liked the game so much that I think it’s going to become part of our Christmas tradition. There was so much laughter and rooting for specific things to happen in the movie, like “a family sits in front of an Xmas tree.”
I must have been good this year, because I got some great thoughtful Christmas gifts. One of my favorite gifts was an oil diffuser. Though I haven’t quite figured out which essential oils complement each other. I first used Eucalyptus, but by itself, it smells like Vicks! So my living room smelled like a sick room for about an hour before I mixed in other oils to help dilute it (Haha!). I did look up some inspiration for what oils to mix and am now loving the spa-like scents, much to Justin’s dismay (though I think he secretly likes it, because he is always in the living room when the diffuser is on).
So, you may have noticed that I have started posting every other week instead of every week. It was after much thought and discussion with friends and family, that while I love blogging, cooking, and writing, I find that it’s hard to post every week with all my other engagements: writing club, volunteering, work, family commitments. However, that being said, I’m excited about my upcoming posts! And I have a little something special planned for Valentine’s Day.
Ok, so Justin and I were asked to bring brunch for Christmas morning, and decided that corned beef hash and blueberry ricotta pancakes would be good options has one is savory and the other sweet. Justin made the corned beef hash while I made pancakes, and it turned out that the hash was way better and more popular than the pancakes. I mean, wow. The Irish really got this soul food thing down. Continue reading “corned beef and hash”
the speckled spork 