Amy's Bridal Shower

Amy's bridal shower was on Saturday and we could not have asked for a better location or a better day. The Inn at Shelburne Farms is absolutely gorgeous. The food was fantastic and most importantly Amy was thrilled. She managed to keep herself together while looking at the photo album that Dana put together for her, but when the cucumber tea sandwiches came out she shed a few tears. Amy had forgotten that she requested them at her bridal shower and was so ecstatic that we had remembered.

Amy crying over cucumber tea sandwiches

Cucumber tea sandwiches

The perfect brunch buffet

Gifts for Amy

Mother-of-the Bride, her sister Kelly and the Bride-to-be, Amy

Home Sweet Studio Apartment

Before

During the big move

After!

After 3 full days of moving in 90 degree heat, my new place is finally put together. This is a photo of my cute little living room and a little bit of my bedroom. :) I am so excited to be able to go home next time and not have to do any cleaning or unpacking!

I would just like to point out that the very nice light fixture that now lights my kitchen was installed by yours truly! Doesn't it look pretty! :)

Thanks Mom, Timmy, Aunt Jeanine, Brian, Linda and George for helping me move and thanks to Jenn for hosting us all at her house. I appreciate all of your contributions to my move.

A Slice of Heaven

I used to think that I loved slices because of pizza, but in reality I love slices of food in general. For example, a slice of greek pizza and a slice of blueberry pie make up my favorite dinner and dessert! See below for recipes.

I made these two pies during one long hot cooking session. First start with your pizza crust then make your pie crust.

Pizza crust:
1. 1 1/2 cups of flour
2. a pinch of salt
3. 1 packet of instant yeast
4. 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
5. 1/2 cup of hot water
6. Mix
7. Cover and let rise while you make your pie

Mom's never fail pie crust recipe:
1.  4 cups of flour
2. 1 teaspoon of baking powder
3. 1 teaspoon of salt
4. 1 tablespoon sugar
5. 1 3/4 cup Crisco
6. 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
7. 1 egg
8. 1/2 cup of cold water
9. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

Mix together the dry ingredients then cut in the Crisco. Don't substitute store brand shortening for the Crisco, it might be more expensive but it is totally worth it. Mix together the cold water and apple cider vinegar, then whisk in the egg.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until your pie crust forms a large ball. Separate into 3 equal parts. Each 1/3 is a double pie crust. My mom uses this crust for sweet and savory pies, so I recommend dusting with cinnamon and sugar if it is a sweet pie!

Rollout a top and a bottom for the pie. Put the bottom crust in your pie plate and set the top aside for a few minutes.

The next step is to make the pie filling. For a blueberry pie mix 4 cups of blueberries, 1/2 - 3/4 cups of sugar and 1/4 cup of cornstarch together. As a side note, blueberry pies call for more cornstarch than a berry berry pie, which only uses about 2 tablespoons of cornstarch.

Put your pie filling in your pie crust and put your top crust over the berries. Use your fingers to close the two crusts together. Make sure that the top is firmly attached to the bottom crust to avoid any blueberry juice from spilling out into your oven.

Sprinkle the top of your pie with cinnamon and sugar and cover with foil. Cook your pie for 25 minutes with the foil on and then cook for an additional 30 minutes without the foil. Let your pie rest overnight or until it comes to room temperature, before you cut into it. Enjoy!

Now that you are salivating over pie and cannot control your appetite anylonger, make your pizza!

Greek Pizza - inspired by pizza eaten with Anna Kovaliv on the island of Santorini!
1. Press out your pizza dough onto a pizza stone or baking sheet.
2. Coat your crust with a thin layer of olive oil. The olive oil traps the heat from below down to your crust so your crust is nice and crisp and brown! This makes a big difference in how your crust cooks.
3. Use your favorite red sauce. For this recipe I like red sauce with garlic.
4. Top with feta, halved grape tomatoes, onion, green pepper and kalamata olives if the mood strikes.
5. Cook at 425 degrees for 15 - 25 minutes depending on your oven. My old oven only took 15 minutes to make my pizza, but my aunt's oven takes almost 25 minutes to cook the same pizza!

Enjoy!!!

My Happy Place - Peak's Island

After driving 4 hours and waiting 2 or 3 more hours for the car ferry I finally arrive at my happy place. As soon as I see this sign I turn my cell phone off and can feel the effects of being on Island time. I am calm, relaxed and giddy about the fact that I am not going to get a single phone call, e-mail, facebook message or text message for one whole week.  This is the one week a year that I unplug and it is well deserved after the last 6 months of work.

This year the crew included: Mom and Timmy, Mike and Dawn, Meg, Corey and Owen, Aaron and myself. I can honestly say that we didn't do a whole lot, a few walks and runs, a ton of eating, some drinking and mostly reading, sleeping and sun bathing.

To conclude such a fabulous week I decided to take on a challenge: 2 scoops of ice cream, which was really more like 4 scoops. 1/2 Maine Blueberry, 1/2 Deer Tracks. While I am disappointed to say I did not finish all the ice cream, I did eat the whole cone.

Happy June 29th (aka June 30th, aka last day of busy season)

Happy End of Busy Season! I have to say that this has been one of the best and worst busy seasons ever. It was nice to know that this would be my last busy season at JLCo, but it was hard being on a new team with a much different operating structure. While I am excited to move on to the next chapter, JLCo has been a huge part of my life and I will miss it. Photo above is Emily, Me and Julia at Breakwaters. Photo below is Elena and Michelle at RiRa's. 

On a closing note WAAAaaaaHooooooo, I Made It!!!!!!!! :)

Weekend Visit to UMass

This weekend I drove onto campus for the first time as an admitted student! When I saw this sign I was overwhelmed with giddiness and to a certain extent nervousness about the changes to come. This is where I am going to spend the next 5 years of my life studying. At some point I will probably walk by this sign and not have any reaction at all, but for now I am relishing the excitement and anticipation.

During my weekend visit I spent some time in Northampton (where I hope to find an apartment),  I also spent a few hours on campus and visited downtown Amherst before calling it a day.

Northampton is cute and trendy with a dash of hippie.  I perused the shops, ate at a great Moroccan restaurant and stopped by the local farmer's market. For my campus visit I really just wandered around for a long time, but in honor of my undergraduate record, I completed my wandering with a nap on the green next to the campus pond. The nap was really enhanced by the background music, played presumably by a student, on a tuba. Hahaha.

The visit was rounded out by some more meandering in downtown Amherst, where Steve and I encountered the most amazing alley ever!

You may see this picture and think, that can't be an alley, it must simply be a crack between two buildings. Well it was an alley and there were signs for a local Thai restaurant leading potential customers down the alley. For a little perspective, I have also included a picture with Steve and I in the alley. It really is just about 1 person and some wiggle room wide.  :)







Overall the weekend was a great success and I can't wait until I have signed a lease somewhere in the area!

Wine Bottle Lamp Making

Step 1: gather the necessary supplies - empty wine bottle, acetone, string, safety goggles, lighter, sink full of ice water and of course more wine for drinking. Oh yeah...innocent (drunk) bystanders to call for help if something goes awry. What could possibly go wrong when playing with fire and drinking? 

Step 2: This is the most important step. PUT THE SAFETY GOGGLES ON!!!

Step 3, 4, 5: Wrap the string around the bottle 5 times, tie off the ends and cut them down to the knot. Remove the string and soak in acetone. Put the string back on the bottle.

Step 6: Have your trusty assistant (who is not drunk) light the string on fire

Step 7: Rotate the bottle while the string burns. You cannot see the fire in this photo, but I promise it was there.

Step 8: Dunk bottle in the sink filled with ice water.
Step 9: Watch as nothing happens.

Step 10: Give up and return to drinking with your friends! Needless to say this looked much easier on YouTube. In the end we didn't have any success making a light fixture, but we had a hell of a time trying to make one!