I Have No Words (Because I Wrote Them All)

it's that time again - finals time. when you attend a blended program like i do (half in the classroom, half online), most finals are in the form of papers. taking a double load means i typically have no less than three papers looming over my head. since our vegas vacation is coming up for our anniversary, i'm cracking down on finals a week early. i super do not want to worry about that nonsense while i'm vacation-ing and spending time with my man, my bestie, and her man. no way.

this past weekend was pretty cool. my man was actually off on a weekend day, and there happened to be a massive sale at Joann's, so i asked my man to keep me company shopping. he is a good man. Joann's has some of the best selection for decent baking accessories, and i got it all for nearly 60% off. i've been waiting for months for this president's day sale so i could restock my poor, sad baking sheets and pans.

mission successful! i got all this for $87! 3 jellyroll pans, 1 cookie sheet, 1 baking pan with lid, 2 pizza pans, 2 flavoring oils, 2 good pairs of scissors, 4 kitchen squeeze bottles, 1 set of twelve silicon muffin liners (for baking and bentos), and 1 hot drink travel tumbler (with loose tea strainer), and 1 silicon mixer scraper/spatula. woo!

we also did some shopping for our trip in the form of a trip to Costco (to stock up on food for home, the boys' game night, and the trip). speaking of the boys' game night, this is what happens to my dining table with my husband has two of his best friends over.

(face blurred for privacy.) skyler and his friends all have monster gaming computers and don't travel light.

there have been a lot of salads with stuff (whatever i find in the fridge).

this one had mixed greens, hard boiled eggs, italian mixed cheese, and leftover lamb sausage.

and lots of these crackers and honey peanut butter. 

these crackers are fantastic, by the way. they taste similar to saltines, only less salty and a little thinner. skyler says he likes them more than saltines!

one day, skyler and i were craving sushi. there's an amazing sushi place about ten minutes away that we absolutely love. neither one of us wanted to change out of our pajamas though (lazy rainy day) and decided we should save the money. it's great valued sushi, but saving is saving. so we put it together at home!

 roasted seaweed (nori), sushi rice, avocado, baked salmon, pickled ginger, takwan (that's the bright yellow pickled radish on the left), and spicy mayo in one of my new squeeze bottles. it all totally hit the spot! not as good as going to the sushi place we both love so much, but it was great!

yesterday i tried my hand at making cream cheese mints. only i didn't make them mint flavored at all. i made a lemon batch, and a raspberry batch (sky's favorite). i have to say that these were a bit of a mess to make (i got powdered sugar everywhere and was quite sticky before class). but they're pretty good! i cut them out with an itty bitty star fondant cutter, then stamped them with another star cutter. they still are drying on the table, but we give them a thumbs up. they're very versatile, and would be great for holidays - no wonder people have been doing that for generation! these are very similar to butter mints. 

i think they came out cute!

then this happened:

that's one of my cats sitting in one of my nicest dishes. super rude, but he was super happy. sky took it out of the cabinet for me (why do i store things i use often in places i can't reach!?) and set it down while i kept cooking and he walked off. then we turned around and saw this. by the way, the cats aren't supposed to be on the counter. and don't worry - we washed it before we used it, after we chase PC off. (that same cat also knocked one of my favorite nail polishes off the counter today and broke it. Tiffany blue polish was all over my cabinet and floor. no picture because i rushed to clean before it started to dry! it cleaned up pretty easily, but i'm a little bummed about my polish - i wanted to wear it to vegas!)

and finally, here is a picture of a fluffy poodle.

appa the poodle. he's a looker.