King (Cake) for a Day!

Lent for me has always been about sacrifice, fish sticks, and cheese pizza. It was not until a few years ago, however, that I was introduced to wonders of Fat Tuesday. Fat Tuesday. The day to indulge before 40 days of Lenten sacrifice for some. Or just a day to party for others.

Because I am always up for an office party, we celebrated Mardi Gras in the office on Tuesday! It was beads, King Cake, and (cookie) masks all around. And I think we are still coming down from the sugar high. My colleague Natalie’s mom sent the beads and all sorts of Mardi Gras goodies for us and I brought in the food.

King Cakes are more of sweet bread than a cake but they are loaded with icing and sprinkles! King Cakes also have one little plastic baby inside (inserted after baking). Tradition maintains that whoever receives the slice of cake with the baby in it is declared King or Queen for the day and is responsible for bringing the cake the following year. The babies are...sort of creepy.

I had actually never heard of King Cake until a few years when Erin and I used to work together and she brought one into the office. I do not think that it was advertised at the time that there was a baby inside the cake and the guy who got the slice happened to be standing near my cubicle when he bit into the baby. I think it scared him. He then gave the baby to Erin (I hope it was washed first. LOL! Otherwise, ew!)

Anyway, flash forward to this year. When I sent the Mardi Gras party email out to the office, I made sure to note that there is a plastic baby in the cake and shared the story that I just wrote above. A few minutes after clicking send on that email, a relatively new colleague came over to my offic-icle (my cubicle has its own door, so it's like a mini office), and told me that he had found a tiny plastic baby in his desk when he first started and asked around and no one knew what it was from. He was completely creeped out by it and finally threw it away last week. Since his desk is Erin's old desk, I think she had left the baby as a little souvenir. :) HAHA!

The King Cake was surprisingly easy to make. I made my mom do a test run of it while I was home a few weekends ago. At that point, we used the Emeril recipe which has a cream cheese filling. Now when it comes to baking for a large group, I following a simple strategy called "KIP" KEEP IT PLAIN. The minute I get fancy or venture into fillings or flavored frosting (which I do often do), someone is allergic or just doesn't like it. I do keep a list on my refrigerator of who doesn't like what, but sometimes it gets a little too hard to work around. So I went with filling-less Southern Living King Cake recipe. SOOO good!

It was sooo easy. The hardest part of this process was finding purple sprinkles. Williams Sonoma was the only place that I could find them! A big container for $4.

The other treat I made was Cookie Masks. I actually found the idea in Women's World magazine, that tabloidish looking magazine that always has someone on the cover who claims to have lost 37 pound in 12 hours or something. The magazine actually has some fun ideas in it.

Hope you took some time to indulge on Fat Tuesday! Bring on the fish sticks!

Ordinary Events, Extraordinary Parties: Confessions of a Shopaholic Movie Pre-Party

If the fact that the series Confessions of a Shopaholic is one of my most favorite series of books ever is surprising to you, then you must not me that well. I love, love, LOVE these books. Ever since I first read the book, I have been envisioning the movie version in my head. When I read that they were actually making the movie, I was soooo excited. So when I sat down to plan my first Ordinary Events, Extraordinary Parties, planning a Confessions of a Shopaholic movie pre-party seemed so obvious. (Yes, I know the movie was released last weekend, but as a rule to avoid annoyingly packed movie theatres, I try not to go to movies during opening weekend.)

This party is easy adaptable to a girl’s night out, a chick-flick movie marathon day, or any other girlie type event!

So here is the very first Ordinary Events, Extraordinary Parties celebration board with descriptions following below. (You can click on the board to make it bigger.)

• Invite: The inspiration for the invite is the Bloomingdales Little Brown Bag. I may have even gone to Bloomingdales to do some research. I used light tan cardstock for the card and the handles from a small brown grocery bag from a recent Whole Foods shopping trip.
  
• Snacks: These are so much fun. I had a bunch of cute cookie cutters in my cookie cutter box that I have been dying to use. The cutters were a purse, dresses, a shoe, and a tiara (was there any doubt that my cookie cutter collection would include a tiara?!?). It was so much fun being a cookie clothing designer. And even though I detest Louis Vuitton with every fiber of my being, its logo and Chanel’s are the easiest to replicate
• Favor/Swag: Using some leftover printed cardstock and ribbon scraps, my mom and I made these little purses that can be filled with some movie snacks to smuggle into the movie theatre (not that I condone that activity or anything….). We personalized the favors by making the “clasp” of the purse the initial of the guest: “R” is for me; “K” is Mom Kathy.

So the party begs the question: What story brings out the Shopaholic in you? For me, it would be Anthropologie and the Container Store. And I can definitely fill a cart at Wal-mart and Target. Post your Shopaholic store of choice in the comments!!!!

Note: You no longer need a Google account to post a comment but don’t be anonymous so please leave a first name. I like to know my readers. And absolutely leave a link to your blog if you have one. Your comment will not show up immediately because there is this annoying thing called blog spam so I moderate comments. But I am an incredibly speedy moderator (well, 95% of the time).

Exciting New Blog Feature!!!!

Over the next few months, I will be rolling out the red carpet for some new weekly features on the blog. I am going to work them in gradually so that I do not over commit and have to stop and also because it will be fun to build up the suspense.

The first of these weekly features will premiere….this evening! So I wanted to introduce it to you all first. When I first started writing this blog, my intent was to make my ordinary life a little bit extraordinary. And when I go back and read everything that I have done, everything that I have created, every place that I have gone, it really does make me wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and say, “I really do lead an extraordinary life.” And other mornings, I wake up, look in the mirror and say, “Good gracious, my pores are huge!”

But I want to take the extraordinary a bit further. I cannot be the only one who hates turning on the news anymore, who hates reading the MSNBC web page headline. Because it is just crummy times. Then I read so many fabulous party planning blogs and see all of these amazing birthday and anniversary parties and weddings being held and see all these happy, glowing faces and think that is the way we should face every day! I think we all need a little smiley face boost. We all need to start turning ordinary events into extraordinary ones.

So I would like to introduce the newest (and first!) weekly column on I Wanna Be A Domestic Goddess (drumroll please....)

Ordinary Events, Extraordinary Parties

As part of the column, I will feature one event. These events may range from something we do often (like grocery shop), something we do sometimes (go to the movies), or something we may never even think to do (celebrate a wacky holiday). And I will plan a party around it, thereby making the ordinary, well extraordinary.

For each event, I will feature the following:

• An invitation – because we all want to get something in the mail that is not a 401K statement that sends us weeping in the darkness.


• A snack – because well, we need to eat


• A party favor – because we all need a free treat

And my goal with each of these events is to use what I have around the house. Now granted, I fully understand that my crafting and baking cabinets are probably a little better stocked than most people’s but I really just want to motivate everyone to start looking at and doing ordinary things in a different way!

I really hope you will join in the fun! And offer your suggestions as well! I am always more than happy to hear your ideas and do my part to give the world a big ole smiley face boost. (Because I really want to start shoe shopping again without feeling guilty….)

Why I Love Weekends at Home

The fresh, delicious pot of coffee that my dad has brewed when I wake up in the morning.

The cozy warm sheets that my mom always puts on my bed when I visit during the winter.

Waking up with the puppy snuggled next to me. She's like a little furnace.

Sunday Brunch (with the requisite shopping trip to Wal-mart afterwards).

Guilt-free afternoon naps.

Younker's Yellow Dot Shoe Clearance Sale.

People yelling "Becky" and then giving me a hug at the grocery store, all while I process that they are, in fact, talking to me, aka Rebecca, and while I try to figure who they are.

Thanks for a fun weekend, Mom, Dad, and Lady, too!!!

Valentine's Day Wrap-Up

My mom honored my Valentine's Day breakfast request of waffles...and even got out the heart-shaped waffle iron.

I made a festive heart topping out of bananas and blueberries! YUM!

My mom also "surprised" me with a very festive sweatshirt that I made in Girl Scouts for her, like 20 years ago! There is soooo much going on in this sweatshirt. HA! Because the glitter paint and multiple rows of penguins were not enough, my nine-year-old self could not resist putting a big bow on the shoulder. Luckily, my fashion sense has improved since then!

Valentine's Day flowers!!!

Decorated sugar cookies!

Even Lady got in the spirit with her bright red collar!

Hope everyone had a nice Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Still scrambling for a last minute Valentine's Day treat?


Here is a super easy, super cute way to celebrate the holiday and let others know how fortune-nate (ha!) you are to have them in your life. Take a box of fortune cookies (Whole Foods had a big box on sale for two dollars). Melt half a bag of chocolate chips either on the stovetop or in the microwave. Dip half of the cookie in the chocolate and then sprinkle with festive decorations.

So easy! So inexpensive! And giving fortune cookies is kind of like giving lottery ticket gifts. There is an element of the unknown in the middle. I had contemplated putting Valentine's Day specific fortunes inside the cookies but I could not figure out how to remove the fortunes already inside and replace them without bringing the structural integrity of the cookie into question.

I brought these into the office and packaged some of them in these cute little purse treat holders that my mom sent me.

Have a sweet Valentine's Day!

"Flying through clouds is like flying through marshmallows"

Hel-lo from Wis-co! It is a federal holiday weekend; therefore, I am not in D.C. I am home in Coleman where the snow is about five feet less deep than when I was here for Christmas. The 32 degree weather is an abrupt change from the 73 degrees that I left behind in D.C. though.

Naturally, when I arrived at National airport yesterday, I found that my flight had been cancelled (“the plane broke”) and they rebooked me on a flight three hours after my original flight. I immediately had traumatic flashbacks to being stuck in the airport on my way home for Christmas. I knew that I could not bear to stay in that airport for any length of time and stay sane. I did some quick commuter math in my head and realized that trekking home and trekking back to the airport really did not make sense. Then I remembered that Pentagon City Mall was just two Metro stops away. So I checked my luggage (as an apology for the cancelled flight, they did not charge a baggage fee) and hopped on the Metro.

For you to fully understand how much I could not stand to sit the airport terminal, you must first understand that to me, Pentagon City Mall is my hell on earth. I cannot stand that place. At all. Once upon a time, I loved shopping in malls. Then I went to Pentagon City Mall. It is always packed, always filled with high school tour groups (yes, I once was one of them long ago), and always loud. The stores are pure chaos and picked over. And the food court sits at the center of the atrium of the mall so the whole place always smells like Sbarro. Yet compared to the uncomfortable airport terminal seats and crummy food choices, Pentagon City Mall became heaven on earth, albeit momentarily.

So I bought a Tall Skim Latte at Starbucks and sat in the mall food court reading a book by Alan Greenspan. And then I set out to peruse the stores. I have seriously cut back on my shopping but I could not pass up on some nice jeans at Macy’s marked down to 19 dollars. And then I saw this purse at Nordstrom and fell in love. SO perfect for spring. So I had to have it.

The flower pattern of this purse became the latest addition in the menagerie of patterns that I was travelling with. Note: I am very conscious of patterns so I had to burst out laughing when I noticed the fashion disaster that I was hauling along.

The flight boarded on time and I found myself seated in the last row, next to a little girl (maybe six years old?) who was travelling by herself (to visit her grandma, I later learned) and had brought with her what seemed to be her entire toy collection. There were Barbie dolls by my feet. A teddy bear’s legs kept getting jammed into my side.

And she talked. And talked. And talked. And talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked. I was attempting to read and listen to my Ipod. But she kept chatting it up with me so I kept pulling my earbuds out to listen. And then I thought she had finished, I would put them back in. And then she would start talking again. So I surrendered and just turned my Ipod off. And she talked and talked and talked. I knew her life story in about five minutes. As well as these conversational gems:

Why do ears pop? Do you know how to unpop them? My dad taught me how to unpop mine. Did your dad teach you how to do that? Isn’t my doll’s hair pretty? That’s a pretty garden (pointing at a picture in the magazine that I had on my tray table). The flowers are in a pretty row. Flying through clouds is like flying through marshmallows. Can you get me a glass of water? Are they coming with cookies soon? Where is the bathroom?

I was like the inflight nanny.

And then she hits me with this one: Why do planes fly? I have a basic understanding of how they fly but how do you explain that to a six-year old. Um, angels carry them? HA! So I just said “I don’t know” and then quickly changed the subject and asked “So do you live in D.C.?” At this point she looked at me very thoughtfully and replied, “Stranger safety guidelines indicate that I should not talk to strangers.”

Um…I really just had to laugh out loud when she said that. But bravo to whomever taught her to not talk to strangers about where she lived. They might want to work on the rest of the details though.

Luckily, we landed short thereafter. And as we were standing up, one of the passengers sitting across from me said, “Wow, you really won the seat lottery, didn’t you?” And everyone seated around me just started laughing.

I really just want my own jet.

You can take the girl out of Wisconsin....

About two or three weeks ago, I signed up for the 1st Annual Blogger's Valentine Card Swap on the April Foster Events Blog (one of the many, many, MANY blogs I read on a daily basis). The swap entails creating homemade Valentine's Day cards for five other bloggers whose mailing addresses I was provided with and mailing them by February 9th. It sounded like a great excuse to be all creative and I had no doubt I could come up with something.

Flash forward, to this morning, February 8th. Picture me sitting in a state of panic because I have not one single idea for a creative card. I was left with a (rare) case of creativity block. So I decided to take a break, eat breakfast, and read a book. So I sat down with my pumpkin oatmeal and Panera Hazelnut Coffee and continued my reading of the book Intuitive Eating. As I read the section on honoring your cravings, all I could think was, man, I am really craving brie. And that, dear blog readers, is all it took for me to break through my creativity block.

I skedaddled over to my computer and in a flurry of design, came up with these five, cheese-inspired designs to put on the front of my Valentine's Day Cards:

Design 1

Design 2




Design 3

Design 4

Design 5

This one is the biggest stretch but it still makes me giggle. Originally, it was going to be a blue cheese card with "I would be so blue without you" but I could not find any blue cheese clipart.

Get it?

Each design is printed one white glossy paper and which is bordered by a red card. The inside of the card looks as follows:

Okay, seriously, if no one else has thought of this before, I am TOTALLY marketing these to cheese shops next year!!!

Sign that you are having a sad, sad Saturday night...

...when your elderly neighbors, all dressed up for a night on the town, see you hauling a laundry basket full of clothes to the laundry room and comment, "Wow, looks like someone has an exciting evening ahead of them." And then they all start laughing.

Not that that happened to me or anything.

If I were ever to go ice fishing this would so be me.

Thanks Mom, for sending me this giggle!!!

I love my home state of Wisconsin so much but the one thing that always perplexed me while I lived (and when I visit) there was the appeal of ice fishing. Maybe people can find enjoyment in it. But the thought of sitting in a freezing cold ice shanty on top of a sheet of ice that could crack at any moment trying to catch a fish, well, I cannot think of anything worse. Wait, I can! Sitting in a deer blind on a mind-numbingly cold and windy November morning in the darkness. I did that once, actually, when I was twelve. I ate all of my snacks before the sun even came up and then fell asleep. And never went again.

I am soooo not outdoorsy. Unless it's an outdoor shopping plaza. Then I am all in!

And P.S. if anyone from my hometown is reading this and attended Winterfest can you 1) Tell me what "Pumpkin Ball" is and 2) Why does it involve a beer drinking contest?

Rebecca's Super Bowl Ice Cream Sandwiches

So has everyone (on the East Coast, at least) finally caught up on sleep after the late night of Super Bowl Sunday? I think it would make sense to have the game start earlier, right? As it is, I always have to leave the parties around the 3rd quarter so that I can get home at a decent hour.

But truth be told, I never pay attention to the game anyway. Ha! And while I have heard mixed reviews on the post game episode of The Office, I found it to be funny in that awkward, uncomfortable humor way that the show does best. And seriously, I still just have to think of the line “The fire is shooting at us” and I dissolve into a puddle of giggles. Three days later, I am still giggling.

The food at the party I was at was fabulous. My contribution to the festivities were ice cream sandwiches. I know that I wanted something football-y and something with ice cream. When I found out my mom had a football-shaped cookie cutter, the sandwich idea came together. But directions on how to make them were hard to find. Even Google was no help. So I just decided to go my own way. (I was in a Project Management class all of last week, so I viewed developing the steps as a way to apply my knowledge from that class.)

So here is the recipe for Rebecca’s Super Bowl Ice Cream Sandwiches.



Makes 20 ice cream sandwiches (depending on size of cookie cutter)

Ingredients:

• 2 batches of Gourmet and Gourmand’s Dark Chocolate Cutout Cookies


• 1 quart of ice cream (Any flavor that pairs well with chocolate), softened


• Cookie Cutter of your choice

Directions:

1. Line a cookie sheet with wax paper. Dump the softened ice cream onto the wax paper and let it melt until it is “spreadable.” When it reaches this point, spread the ice cream over the entire wax paper covered-cookie sheet and place in freezer. Freeze until firm, preferably overnight.
2. Prepare a double batch of the Dark Chocolate Cutout Cookies. I found the cookies to be best when cooked at 350 degrees for 12 minutes.
3. When the ice cream is sufficiently firm, use the same cookie cutter as was used for the cookies to make cutouts of the ice cream. This is somewhat obvious but you have to work super quickly.
4. Place the ice cream cutout on top of one of the cookies and then top with another cookie. Place the sandwich on another cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Repeat until all sandwiches are made.
5. Put the sandwich filled pan in the freezer and keep frozen until ready to serve.

Happy Super Bowl Sunday!!!!

Who is super excited for the parties??? Or the game, if that's your thing. For me, it is all about the yummy food, the commercials, and the socializing. And Bruce Springsteen is performing a halftime! I love Bruce Springsteen!!! And The Office is the after game show!!! (Okay, I will probably end up watching the DVR'd episode tomorrow...that's way past my bedtime.)

I just finished my treats for the party I am attending! They are super cute!!!! I will try to get a blog up about them tomorrow!

A friend hosts a huge party each year and it is so much fun! This year she wanted to make the leap from evite to actual invitation and asked me if I would like to design it! "Absolutely!!!!!" was my excited response. I fully support real invitations because who doesn't love getting one in the mail? And right now the Post Office needs all the help it can get.

My very first thought when brainstorming this invite was some sort of variation on a "pop-up" card theme. I searched Microsoft clipart for hours looking for the perfect football graphics. And found nothing. So I designed my own.

The front...



The inside...

The full card flat. (I added a small football using a raised adhesive so it kind of 'pops'!)

The full card "popped" up.

What are your plans for the big game? Whatever they are, enjoy the game, the food, and the commercials...and the Bruce!!!