June 24, 2014

Muffins and Tea



























Muffins are pretty good right? I like a nice lemon poppy seed or chocolate walnut as much as the next gal, but I never truly loved a muffin until now. Enter the rosemary strawberry buttermilk muffin from Local Milk!

May 30, 2014

This Is My Jam: READING RAINBOW



If you were ever a kid then you probably watched and loved Reading Rainbow! Okay, maybe not EVER, but a lot of us did. It is a show that I enjoyed and remember fondly. Now, as an information professional, I see the importance behind the enjoyment more than I ever did before. Reading Rainbow isn't just about helping kids learn to read, it is about fostering a LOVE of reading and books in children, and I think that is a pretty dang good cause to support.

May 27, 2014

New House Tidbits: Our "Yard"



So one of the great things about our new house is there is a ton of planting space. Flowers, and veggies, and trees, hooray! There is also a large "yard" space which was obviously once lawn (the strategically placed sprinklers give it away). However, lawns and Southern Arizona don't go so well together, so now it is just a whole lotta dust.

May 08, 2014

This Is My Jam: Actual Jams Edition

Hello and welcome to another edition of This Is My Jam. Or perhaps more appropriately, These Are My Jams. This time my jams are, wait for it, actual jams! In the musical sense I mean, not the fruity spread sense.

I am currently on a work trip in Utah to Golden Spike National Historic Site. It is actually a pretty awesome place where the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific railroads met up to make the first transcontinental railroad (it's history people, look it up)! Anyway, I am there to do archivey things and am staying in nearby Brigham City, whose most notable feature in my eyes are the AMAZING lilacs everywhere. Lilacs are my favorite flower, but do not grow so well down in hot, dry, Arizona, so I haven't seen the lovelies for ages. I am so jealous of all the huge lilac bushes they have here! That combined with the cold, rainy, weather actually makes me a bit homesick for Oregon. Weird.

So, due to my current lack of time and photos, here are a few jams that are really making my day on this trip.

May 01, 2014

The Shower Beer - It's Legit



Today is not a pleasant day to be in Tucson, AZ. At least not for those of us with allergies. The wind is insane and the air is filled with dust and pollen. Since I am basically dying here I wanted to talk about something that I find relaxing and awesome, and which gets no credit. The shower beer.

April 20, 2014

This Is My Jam: The Parish


I think a new goal for this blog, or possibly old goal that I have just remembered again, is going to be writing shorter and/or more focused posts.

I always get bogged down by really long posts. I go to write something and there are like a hundred photos I want to share and then it always takes for freakin' ever. That leads to me never feeling like I have time to post, which leads to longer amounts of time between posts, which in turn leads to a million things/pictures to share the next time. It is a vicious circle.

I am also going to start a semi-regular segment called "This Is My Jam." This will be a (relatively) short post on a place or thing that I really enjoy. Sort of like a "hey you should go check out this totally rad thing because I think it is totally rad" kind of post. These will of course be based only on my own opinions. No one is paying me to say nice things about them, that would require businesses actually knowing about my blog.

So let's combine the lots of short/focused posts idea and this new segment right now (yay!).

April 18, 2014

Where Have We Been?



Being back in blogland after a long break feels good. Yes my blog has a fresh new look, but my life kind of does too. New car (my old one was totaled after the accident back in the fall), new house (still in Tucson, but much closer to town and walking distance to lots of places), new hobby/sport (I joined roller derby and am currently in the training phase), many things have changed.

April 14, 2014

Well, Here We Are














Well I am back. Again.

Part of the reason I was gone is I have been insanely busy, part of the reason is I was just feelin' down on my blog and didn't have much interest in writing in it. While I tried valiantly (at least that's what I tell myself) to revamp it to a state of awesomeness, sometimes you just gotta call in the pros. 

December 01, 2013

Thanksgiving

This year Mister B's parents were in town for Thanksgiving (they live here, but are generally gone this time of year), so we had a full out Thanksgiving instead of our traditional Thanksgiving pizza (which I am pretty sure I have talked about in past blog posts, but you are likely to see it here around Christmas this year I think). That meant that his parents made all the major components, turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and I got to contribute whatever I wanted. And what I wanted was sweet potato pie and buttermilk biscuits.