WIAW Christmas Day 2013 + Future Posts

Before I get started with all of this 2013 recapping fun in the coming days I first want to share a quick collage of my Christmas Day.

Of course it must feature some food as I hate to miss out on Jenn’s What I Ate Wednesday party.

First row from left: Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls, my brother’s new Keurig machine, paleo Apple Chunk Cinnamon Rolls.

Second row from left: The fire station where we had lunch on Christmas day, laying out the food, Christmas presents.

Third row from left: My dad expertly cutting the ham, the start of the dessert table, my dad’s plate of leftovers for dinner.

For breakfast on Christmas morning we made Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls for my brother and Apple Chunk Cinnamon Rolls for my parents. Along with the rolls they also made bacon on our large griddle and after presents were opened, made coffee and hot chocolate with my brother’s new Keurig.

Every year for Christmas we always go to my grandparent’s house for lunch to celebrate. As they’ve gotten older though we have started just having holidays at the fire station where my grandpa is the retired fire chief. There was the usual ham and turkey, of which the turkey my grandma accidentally overcooked A LOT.  Sighing “good gravy” in an exasperated tone, she tapped the outside of the cooked bird and it sounded quite… hard. I preferred it that way, but to see her face when she first took the lid off the turkey was hilarious.

My grandparents also brought the stuffing, corn, mashed potatoes and gravy, pie and soda. My great aunt brought some homemade rolls which everyone said were delicious. My other two aunts brought fresh fruit salad and homemade sweet potato casserole. One of my cousins brought her famous frosted sugar cookies, deviled eggs, and cranberry jelly, and another made a raw vegan kale salad which sounded amazing. There was also cole slaw, lemon bars, m&m cookies, powdered sugar balls, and peanut butter cookies (but I’m not sure exactly who made them).

After the lunch I was recruited as always to help dish out the leftovers. Just as my grandma was trying to send us home more food, I was also acting as a double agent for my mom who wanted me to stave off the attempts. I tried my best. As you can see in the last picture of the collage though we ended up with quite a bit of delicious food for the following night and next day.

If you are still plagued with any leftovers from Christmas feasts, or if you will be after New Years, check out my post on creative ways to use them.

Coming up soon in my next four posts I will have a recap of my Christmas presents, my recap of 2013/plan for 2014, a new oatmeal recipe, and another cookbook giveaway!

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Well, it’s officially New Year’s. My brother and his friends are outside right now blowing their kuzookas and probably making a mess of our yard with poppers. Once again the news stations did not actually show the ball dropping, which I just don’t understand.

Happy 2014 blogland! Hope it’s a great one 🙂

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Questions for you:

• What are your plans for New Years day? We are going to Pizza Hut with family.
• Are you ever roped into getting leftovers?  Yes.
• What would be your favorite food to get? Turkey!

Pictorial Deposit (Foodless WIAW)

AKA Photo dump. But pictorial deposit sounds like a lot more work was involved, doesn’t it? 🙂

Here are a bunch of pictures from a recent weekend that my family and I spent in Michigan:

And I’m linking up to WIAW just because 😉

The weekend started with my brother and I going to a Detroit Lions baseball game.

It was my first time ever at a professional baseball game and it was much more exciting than I predicted!

I got the tickets free from work along with some “Fun Money” which my brother spent on food along with some souvenirs.

Before the game was over I convinced him to take a picture of me in front of the stadium. 🙂

And of course I returned the favor 😉

The Lions ended up winning the game and after it was over they had very long and beautiful fireworks show.

We didn’t end up getting back until very late that night but nonetheless Saturday morning we all got up bright and early, made breakfast, and headed out to Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan.

The home of the late Henry Ford.

The first part of the village had a lot of historical cars and memorabilia of the famous Ford.

Including one of his first cars pictured below!

Besides the Ford cars we also saw one of his tractors.

Along with the tractor there was also a windmill and an enclosed area that housed sheep.

There were also a lot of things about Thomas Edison who apparently acted as a sort of mentor to Ford.

We got to tour Edison’s laboratory where he performed some of his experiments and also where one of his inventions, the galvanometer, was showcased.

Then we were off to a few other famous homes including the Sarah Jordan boarding house.

The bicycle shop of the Wright Brothers.

Near the bicycle shop was their home from Kitty Hawk.

And one of the highlights of the trip for me- the home of Noah Webster, the creator of Webster’s Dictionary.

Look at all of those books!

This is only about half of the places that we visited in Greenfield Village so far. Be forewarned- many more pictures ahead!

My mom was the person who was really pushing for us to visit Greenfield Village so we had to make sure to stop by the craftworks district, which was where she wanted to visit most, and which ended up being everyone’s favorite part!

There was glassblowing.

As well as Pottery.

Tin.

And weaving.

Then came the real fun of the day- getting to watch my brother operate a printing press 🙂

Success.

The printing press was towards the end of our trip to Greenfield Village so of course before we left we had to make sure that we captured all of the necessary photo opportunities.

All in all it was a great weekend and look out for the rest of my recap on Friday!

Just in case the thought of another “pictorial deposit” doesn’t excite you, there’s also the recipe for this to look forward to:

Grain-free. Nut-free. Vegan. And oh so yummy 😀

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Questions for you:

What did you do this past weekend? I went to a bridal shower and went thrift store shopping with my mom (more on that later!).

Have you gone any trips with your family/friends recently? Yep. The entire post above 😉

What is your favorite type of vacation? I like vacations where there is a little bit of everything. Relaxation. Fun. Learning.

What I’ve Been Up To (MIMM)

Catchy title, no? A lot of blogging experts say that the best title is concise and straight to the point. You can’t get much more accurate than that.

Thanks to Katie at Healthy Diva Eats for hosting the fun, weekly Marvelous in My Monday blog party where I am going to share what I’ve been up to for the past few days.

The Iron Daughter

A modern fantasy novel about faeries, love, and adventure (sequel).

How Too Much Omega-6 and Not Enough Omega-3 is Making Us Sick

An interesting read for those health conscious individuals who consume nuts and oils on a daily basis.

The Honesty Dilemma

This post really made me stop and think about what it means to tell the truth.

I Never Got to Say

Alex wrote a really touching reflection post about how her friends helped her in the toughest of times.

I’m Not Lying

I think everyone needs to keep this in mind whether no matter the situation.

The Glades

“Sunny with a chance of homicide.” What more do I need to say?

Rookie Blue

*Sigh* This is one of my favorite shows of all time. Andy + Sam forever.

Camp Rock 2

Sometimes you just need a movie that’s light and cuss-free. My brother and I watched this last night.

Goosebumps

I sat through maybe 5 minutes of this show before going to bed. I tried but I still am not a fan of the creep factor.

Camp Rock

Much less creepy. Apparently I fell asleep while watching it though and my brother said I was “out like a log” with my headphones still on.

• Going to a baseball game with my brother
• Spending time with my family
• Buying/watching a new movie
• Seeing the local sights
• Learning about history
• (more about these later on in a recap!)

A cinnamony, grain and dairy-free bread with vegan and nut-free substitution options.

(I’ll be sharing the recipe on Wednesday. It’s a good one 🙂 ).

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I want to know- What have you been…

• Reading?
• Watching?
• Doing?
• Making?

Fun Facts Friday: I’m McQuirky

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a Fun Facts Friday post so I decided to bring it back for today! In this edition I’ve gathered together seven odd (but fun) facts about me. The title is also referencing Grey’s Anatomy, which if any of you have watched it then you’d know that two of the main characters were nicknamed McDreamy and McSteamy in season one. This post has nothing to do with television or hot guys… But adding “mc” to quirky just seemed like more fun 🙂

Let’s get started!

1. I have the strange habit in the morning of never buttoning/unbuttoning my pants to put them on. I just pull them right on up. (What a way to start a post, right? Now you will forever think of me as the girl who doesn’t know how to properly dress herself).

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2. Sometimes in my spare time I will go find unhealthy recipes in cookbooks or on the web, copy and paste them into a word document, and then create a brand new version that’s lower in sugar, grain-free, paleo, vegan, etc. Only a small percentage of the time do I actually end up making them, I just enjoy recipes in general. I’ve been known to even take a cookbook to bed with me and read it like a novel.

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3. In high school whenever I have a rough day I would go to my bookshelf and pull out one of my favorite novels to read. Usually a J.K. Rowling, Sarah Dessen, Ally Carter, Rachel Meade or Cassandra Clare. If it was a particularly stressful days sometime’s I’d even settle down to my favorite childhood books like Nancy Drew 🙂

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4. Speaking of some of my favorite authors, the first blogs that I ever read actually weren’t food or healthy living blogs but author blogs. Meg Cabot was probably the first, followed by Sarah Dessen and Ally Carter. I still follow them all and read every single one of their posts.

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5. I know a lot of people dislike watching movies pr tv episodes more than once, or  having to read the same book twice… But I’m the complete opposite. Given the chance to watch a new movie or an old favorite (like Harry Potter, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Sweet Home Alabama, Star Wars, etc.) I would be more likely to choose the old movie. See, when you’ve already read/watched something you whether it’s good or not. If you haven’t read/watched it yet there’s a chance that you’ll end up wasting hours of your life on something awful. Why not stick with the familiar?

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6. The other day Alex actually mentioned something odd that I do too. I can’t stand sleeping the normal way under sheets and a bedspread. No matter where I’m at- home, apartment, hotel (especially at hotels!) I always sleep on top of the bedspread with another blanket on top. I’ve done this for a pretty long time much to the annoyance of my parents.

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7. I love search engines. That may seem really random (which it is) but I genuinely like to just pull up yahoo! or google and look things up. It’s like a challenge to me to see what’s available online to learn about. Imdb and wikipedia are probably the two most visited websites in my internet history (besides bloglovin and wordpress that is!).

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And that wraps up another Friday post. After clicking Publish I’m going to get my food prep done for tomorrow, get ready for bed (minus the pajamas which I already put on when I got home today 😉 ) and read a few chapters of a new book that I got at a thrift store last week.

Tomorrow I’m pretty excited because my family is driving up to stay the weekend with me. My brother and I are going to a baseball game Friday night with free tickets that I got through work, and on Saturday/Sunday we are going to explore the city a bit and try to find something fun to do. Maybe watch a movie.

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Questions for you:

What makes you McQuirky?

Do you sleep on top or under your bed sheets?

Are you someone who likes to reread or rewatch things?