a ruby a day

If there's a sweeter girl around, I haven't met her. 

exam week procrastination

7 travel inventions i'd love to see (but probably never will) - i am totally entertained.

you draw it: how family income affects children's college chances - this is both fascinating and not surprising.

how to create a cheese plate for every possible occasion - more funny than instructive...but also instructive.

last!  day!  with!  students!  (until august 17.)

what i'm listening to right now

nate ruess, i love your voice.  and thus i love this song, which also has a great beat.

"nothing without love":

for christmas, becky got me an awesome vegetarian cookbook called plenty, and this weekend i finally sat down and made a recipe from it.  this is the recipe from page 222, lentils with tomatoes and gorgonzola, with my own twists (no onions, add spinach, different kind of cheese).  the oven-dried tomatoes were an amazing compliment to the lentils, and this is definitely a recipe that i will make again!

i'm getting back into a more regular yoga practice, and with the heat of summer approaching, i am craving lighter and healthier foods.  stressful time of year (and all the bad habits that came with it) - goodbye!  hello, almost summer!

strawberry cake

my friend elizabeth's birthday is tomorrow, and she had a little get-together this afternoon at one of our favorite casual bars.  i offered to make her a cake because no one should have to provide their own birthday cake.  she requested fresh strawberry cake, and i found a recipe on smitten kitchen, always my go-to for new recipes because the author makes delicious stuff, takes great pictures of it, and writes like you're her best friend and she's telling you what she made as you eat brunch together.  i. love. her.

i am not really a fan of strawberry-flavored cakes, so i was skeptical but willing to make elizabeth whatever she wanted.

step one: eat a healthy lunch (lentils with sautéed spinach and garlic) to make up for the obscene amount of frosting you are going to lick off of your fingers later.

step two: make the batter.  this recipe has a cup and a half of pureed strawberries in it, and just one drop of food coloring to make it nice and pink.  the recipe makes a three layer cake (but i just made two slightly thicker layers and some cupcakes since i only have two cake pans), and it tested the capacity of my medium-sized kitchenaid mixer.

step three: use this as an excuse to buy the cake carrier you have always wanted to buy.  yes!

step four: baked, frosted, and ready to go!

step five: eaten!  um, this cake is one of the best cakes i've ever made.  seriously.  top three.  i make a bad ass chocolate cake with chocolate ganache (secret ingredient: coffee), a bad ass carrot cake (secret ingredient: no gross nuts), and now a bad ass strawberry cake (secret ingredient: cake flour, which makes a super tender and delicate cake).  i am ready to open a cake shop.  who wants to fund me?!

the strawberry flavor tastes…like strawberries!  because it contains them!  the real thing has made me realize that previous strawberry cakes i've eaten have probably never been near a strawberry, relying on whatever the chemical strawberry "flavor" is.

it was a huge hit with elizabeth and her friends and i am feeling very proud of myself!  i'll be bringing the cupcakes to brunch* with a different group of friends tomorrow and am hopeful that they will go over just as well.


*who says you can't have cupcakes at brunch??

a Ruby a day

I could not be more in love with this sweetheart, who purred and then napped while I watched Netflix after dinner. 

No, but really. How did I get so lucky with this kitty?

miss claire's trader joe's recommendations

the greeting cards section at trader joe's is a-mazing.  some of the cards (not 100%, but enough!) are cute or funny or pretty enough to buy - and they are simple and not cheesy - AND THEY COST $1.  i don't know when the last time you bought a $1 card was, but hallmark cards are like $4 now.  trader joe's.  buy your greeting cards there, friends.

trader joe's frozen foods section: buy the speculoos cookie butter cheesecake bites.  and thank me later. they are small enough that you don't feel guilty have a few bites of something sweet, and they are delicious enough that you will be VERY sad when they are gone.  the box says you should thaw them a bit in the fridge before eating, but i eat them straight from the fridge and they are probably just a smudge firmer than intended, but, like thin mints, these are excellent straight from the freezer.

what i'm listening to right now

the song is another one that requires dancing around my apartment while it is playing.

"fight song," by rachel platten:

a Ruby a day

On Sunday, this snuggle bug allowed me to take a nap with her...if I laid on the floor, only snuggled with one arm, and she got to lie in her bed.

I will take what I can get. 

“To practice five things under all circumstances constitutes perfect virtue; these five are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness.”
—Confucius

wild rice casserole

on friday we had a baby shower for a work friend, which was really fun!, and there was a fair amount of food left over.  i took home the remnants of the vegetable tray, and then got the idea to make a wild rice casserole with lots of the veggies in it.  um, smitten kitchen wins again.  the cheese sauce was AMAZING over the steamed broccoli and sautéed green onions and mushrooms and just-barely-done wild rice, and it only took 15 minutes in the oven to be great.  huge thumbs up - i'll be making this again soon.

a Ruby a day

Ruby is 2 today! Happy birthday to the sweetest little furball around! Please consider that cheese that fell on the floor your birthday present.

a photo a day

I met the first of these fantastic people in June of 2001, when we worked together at Duke TIP. Over the next six summers the others joined. We have laughed and cried together, gone night swimming and hiking, baked and played nerdy games. And, you know, supervised middle schoolers along the way. After we stopped working together we have made it a priority to see each other at least once a year, though we are spread out around the country. These are very special friends of mine, and I can't imagine how our paths would have crossed had it not been for TIP, which hired us all (and then eventually fired a few of us).

I'm so happy we could all be together for Nora's wedding to Nigel in DC last weekend! And I can't wait for the 4th of July in Boone!

what i'm listening to right now

i have heard this a few times on the radio when i was driving, and it is the kind of music you immediately turn up and start dancing in your seat.  LOVE.  "budapest," by george ezra:

a photo a day

The original plan was NOT to have US Air cancel my flight from Charlotte to DC, leaving me stranded in Charlotte for 12 hours. It was not to be rebooked on a flight that landed in DC 3 hours before Nora and Nigel's wedding. But somehow this has all truly been okay. I'm sad that I didn't get to spend the day with my friends in northern Virginia before driving with them to the wedding venue. But we have tomorrow together, too, so all isn't lost. And my forced layover was in a city where I have good friends, who picked me up, housed me, fed me freshly-made biscuits and eggs this morning, and I got to read books to - and draw with sidewalk chalk with - and take selfies with - Mr. Ryan.

I saw a former student on my plane to DC (!!), metroed to the National Mall, and have set up shop with my suitcase and tote bag for a few hours before I uber to the wedding site. Will I be changing into my dress in the bathroom of the Smithsonian? Yes, yes I will. And until then I have a newly downloaded book on my phone, a diet coke, sunshine and blue skies, the shade of a big tree, and a suitcase-pillow.

Life is still pretty good. 

i'm planning to read along with the NPR morning edition book club's pick this month - anyone want to join?  i was sad to miss their first pick and am excited to virtually join in for the second one.  because i am a 30-something educated liberal who loves NPR, and this little book club shows that they know their audience well.

“For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
—Nelson Mandela

what i'm listening to right now

pandora discovered this song for me, and i love it.  "swing life away," by rise against:

a photo a day

Research papers to grade? A gorgeous 82 degrees with low humidity? Why yes, I WILL grade by the pool.

Let me note that before I moved to Texas, I might have called 82 degrees hot. I now think it feels SO PERFECT because I know what a humid 97 degrees for three months straight feels like. Does this mean I am a real Texan?

april: 9

we need to talk about kevin, by lionel shriver (i only read one book this month, in large part because this one was a little ponderous.  a (fiction) book told from the perspective of the mother of a school shooter?  why yes, i probably should have anticipated not always wanting to pick this one up.  and it is an epistolary novel…which didn't really work for me.  letters by their very nature leave things out that are understood between the writer and the person reading it, but when books contain letters they almost always contain all these details that just don't seem realistic to me.  on the positive side, throughout the book you know that the end will be the details of the school shooting, but there were some TWISTS that i was not really anticipating and so i liked (is "liked" the right word when people are dying?) the end of this book more than the 400 pages i had to get through to get to the end.  i'm not recommending this one, folks, but i guess i'm glad i read it.)

a ruby a day

My Friday night buddy!