25 Things: Day 2

I did it. Again.

I know. You're shocked. Two whole days in a row is more consistency from me than you've come to expect.

Before I get to my accomplishment there are two other super awesome things I want to mention that happened yesterday.

First, our glorious new shiny refrigerator was delivered.

Isn't she pretty? Austin got her for roughly half of the MSRP and I am thrilled. It's a little big for the space, but that's about to change. I'm even more excited about that, but that project deserves its own post and really isn't going to get done in the hour between Norie and I going to sleep.

I also made Beer and Bacon Mac & Cheese for dinner. It had Halcyon in it. It was GOOD.

I wish I could take credit for this idea, but I can't. It was The Beeroness. If you like craft beer and cooking you should go subscribe to her RSS feed right now. It's amazing. She has about a million recipes I want to try and she obviously blogs during the day based on the quality of her photos. Don't get me started about fall lighting and blog photography when you have a full time job.

Short version: it sucks.

Slightly longer version: it sucks more when you don't feel like you have the time to import the pictures from your real camera and quickly snap some shots with your phone.

I promise I'll replace these pictures some weekend when I can take them during the day. Well, at least the ones of things I haven't eaten.

That brings me to my 25 Things plan.

I didn't have a ton of time so instead of using the prioritization I did the thing I thought I could finish the fastest and without making too much noise. I started this page months ago and only had a couple of bits to stick down and the month label to create. 

In case you are counting and wondering why my October page is about finding out I was pregnant if Norie was born in May, I found out I was pregnant about 6 weeks after conception (a.k.a. when I was 8 weeks pregnant). There is a page for September too since I was pregnant for the whole month even though I didn't know it yet. No wonder I felt so icky at the Great American Beer Festival. By the time we found out about her she was the size of a strawberry. We were trying so it was a major relief to find out I didn't just have some freaky weird endocrine problem. The blog posts around that whole situation would have been hilarious if I had been ready to tell people.

On a photographic note, if your infant has attempted to use the corner of your phone with the camera as a chew toy the images get blurry. Lesson learned; clean the lens.

Day 2 of my 25 Things plan: check.

1. Buy a bracket and rehang the blinds in the bedroom
2. Plant the mum by friend Nancy gave me
3. Write something on my DIY Chalkboard
4. Finish my fall mantel
5. Take Norie's four month pictures before she's five months old
6. Finish the wedding plate wall art
7. Make some bunting for my office
8. Build a pallet bar/wall art to cover up the attic fan switch
9. Make a DIY ribbon chandelier for Norie's room
10. Do something with the shutters my aunt got me last year
11. Put the label plates back on the enormous drawer thing and label the drawers
12. Finish the wall art I started for the Song print I got for donating to Love Without Boundaries
13. Finish my desk
14. Finish the table scape for Campbell Family Thanksgiving 2012
15. Hang the awesome owl latch hook my sister gave me at Norie's baby shower
16. Clean up the porch
17. Finish the October page in my pregnancy scrapbook (yes, that would be last October)
18. Fix the leg on the coffee table and finish repainting it
19. Sell the coffee and end tables
20. Make a coffee table
21. Create a gift wrapping/gift wrap organizing space
22. Start working on fun holiday decorations
23. Finish the other Dream Dollhouse from last year's Make Two Challenge
24. Make some DIY cake stands from wedding plates and candlesticks.
25. Make map mats for vacation photos

It's Infographic Friday!

Is that a thing I do?

Yes, as of right now. Check out this awesome one from Sly Fox about canned beer. It came out in April, but I don't care.

SlyFoxBeer.com

It's all in the details (my camera works again!!!)

My computer hasn't been on speaking terms with my camera for a while. It's meant that I can take photos, but you can't see them unless I hold my camera up in front of your face. Not exactly functional if you want to take pictures for your blog so you can show stuff to people you don't see on a daily basis, you know?

When you take them with your phone they just aren't as nice.

Case in point: this lovely little green desk. (She's for sale if you know someone who would like to give her a new home.)

Photos taken with my iPhone

Photos taken with my camera

Neither are amazing, but I think it's clear which are better. 

How did I make it work again? After a bit of research I realized I had somehow changed the communication mode from PTP to Nomal. Once again, normal is bad and makes you less happy. PTP is good and means you can import all the pictures you've taken in months.

I'm very excited about the possibility of taking fabulous photos in the near future.

Also released from camera limbo is a TON of beer porn (i.e. glamor shots my husband takes of beer).

I think it's clear where the real photography talent is in this relationship, but I'm going to take pictures anyway.

Woohoo!

Homemade Christmas doughnuts? Sure, I can do that.

My husband has an irrationally high level of faith in my domestic abilities.

At least that's what I tell myself. The alternative is that he makes ridiculous requests just to see if I'll attempt them. He thinks nothing of asking if "we" (meaning I) can do things that most people think of as too difficult or time consuming to even consider.

To be fair, I am pretty freaking domestic. I don't think about it most of the time because it's my life, but then people come over and gawk over making fresh mozzarella and cracking out home canned sauce for pizza and I remember that not everyone does that.

Maybe his expectations aren't that irrationally high.

A couple of days before Christmas he asked if we could make these beer donuts he found a recipe for in BeerAdvocate. In my head I thought, "Are you freaking crazy? Why should we make doughnuts? I don't even think I've ever deep fried anything in my life. And do you have any idea how much is involved in this process? It has to raise like three times and it will take hours. I really don't want to."

Did I express that out loud?

No.

I said, "sure."

I'm a sucker for that man. He's just so damn cute and really doesn't seem to know how hard the thing he's asking you to do is considered to be by most people. He's so adorably ignorant you feel like you're not even trying if you don't at least try (which technically you aren't). So you try. Then he wants to make several different kinds of donuts. You know, so there is some variety. Nevermind, the fact that it means you have to do all the work multiple times.

Turns out, as usual, he was right. I"m a domestic rock star and I pulled it off beautifully. I think he got the impression that I felt like this project was a lot to take on when I suggested we only make one kind. He helped make two.

Christmas Eve, after visiting his grandmother and making dinner I made a Christmas spiced mocha and we started the doughnuts. I'm not a night person so I figured it was a good preemptive strike. I knew this was going to be a several hour long project. Luckily, it involved a significant amount of waiting time while the dough was rising and I had time to devote to finishing up and wrapping some Christmas presents for the next morning.

By midnight was had two dozen beautiful homemade doughnuts and matching doughnut holes in Map-Ale Bacon (An ale based doughnut with maple frosting and crispy bacon on top) and Black and Tan (a Pale Ale doughnut with a Stout glaze). We used Tallgrass Ale in the Map-Ale Bacon and Tallgrass IPA and Buffalo Sweat in the Black and Tan.

Pretty tasty.