This is a TEST

Well, I have been having some trouble with my blog...the story of my life.  For those of you who have chosen to "follow by email", you have not been getting my emails and you probably didn't even realize it!  There have been about three new posts that have not been sent through email to those of you who have signed up.  I personally went through everything I could in my blog, every little tab, trying to figure out what I had done.  Of course, even if I had an idea of what I did, I usually cannot figure out how to fix it.  Last year I somehow deleted my beloved blog that was full of hundreds of posts from 2009-2012...yes, it was traumatic...and NO, I had no backups.  All of those stories...gone forever.  So, as you can imagine, now when things go wrong on my NEW blog, I really freak out!  Anyway...it pays to know people...a very smart friend helped me out and hopefully fixed this problem.  So, this is a TEST post to see if we get the email...yay!!!

BABYSITTER UPGRADE

So, for YEARS I have been a babysitter.  I remember my first "job"(other than watching my three younger sisters) was babysitting the boy down the street for $1 per hour and I thought I had struck it rich!  Needless to say, I have worked my way up over the years and have slightly increased from my $1 per hour.  Anyway...this past Friday night I was called to babysit  chaperone!!!  Not only was I asked to chaperone, but I was going to stay at a fancy hotel (in the penthouse suite!!!), have my dinner paid for at a fancy restaurant and order room service for breakfast!  WHOA!!!  

I arrived at the Hotel Florence around 9pm, since we all attended The Kings Academy graduation (Congratulations Dylan!!!).  After being escorted up to the Penthouse Suite, I was left with two Junior High girls under my loving and watchful care until 11am Saturday morning...  

These two girls took the bedroom with the queen sized bed and larger than life shower because there were chocolates left on the pillows.  Thats a good reason to me!  I found out, in the morning, that they had each taken a bite out of their chocolates, but not finished them...I finished them immediately...you gotta do what you gotta do...

So, I was left to suffer alone in the bedroom with two queen sized beds, huge bathroom and luxurious bath and my own flatscreen TV mounted to the bedroom wall.  Do you feel my pain yet?

The girls and I, after thoroughly checking out our new place and the balcony that overlooked downtown Florence, went downstairs and had dinner at Victor's Bistro.  Once I had finished off my spinach salad, full of craisins, apples, candied pecans and blue cheese, I enjoyed a perfect piece of salmon, some asparagus and potatoes to die for!  

Unfortunately, the restaurant was almost closing, so I HAD to take my orange flavored cheesecake with dark chocolate moose upstairs to enjoy with my coffee that I made in our own personal penthouse Keurig.  Of course, since it was a sleepover, we HAD to watch chick-flicks until 2am, while lounging on the huge comfy sofa that faced another flat screen TV, mounted on the wall over our personal kitchenette.  

We slept in until close to 8am and then ordered room service (from Victor's Bistro) for breakfast while we continued to watch chick-flicks.  

Wow...this chaperone thing really seems like my kind of job!!!  Please hire me!!!  In these extreme cases, I work for room and board (especially in penthouse locations).

GLUTEN FREE BROWNIES

 Before these, the only brownies I ever made came from a box.  I really thought that brownies would be  too difficult and that only grandmas baked "real" brownies.  Well, they are super easy and SO GOOD!!!  Here are the ingredients that I use:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt the coconut oil on low heat.  Mix together the maple syrup, cocoa powder and vanilla, then add them to the melted coconut oil.  I didn't have enough maple syrup this time, so I made up for it with honey...it came out pretty much the same.  Add the coconut flour and baking soda.  Lastly, add the bittersweet chocolate chunks.  I used a semi-sweet chocolate bar (from Bolivia) and grated it.  You can also cut it so that you can control the "chunk" size.

Mix it all together and pour it into a greased dish.  Bake it for 25-30 minutes.

You can top it with chocolate moose or strawberries or anything!

Gluten Free Brownies:

3 tablespoons coconut flour

2 eggs

1/2 cup coconut oil, melted

1/2 cup maple syrup

3 tablespoons cocoa powder

1/3 cup bittersweet chocolate chunks

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Melt coconut oil on low heat

Add cocoa powder, maple syrup and vanilla to melted coconut oil

Mix together

Add all other ingredients and mix together

Bake for 25-30 minutes in greased dish

Chocolate Moose (topping):

1 avocado

1 tablespoon cacao powder

2 tablespoons honey

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon sea salt

Blend all ingredients VERY well (otherwise you get nasty avocado chunks)

Place in frige for about 30 minutes

Add a dollop on top of your brownie!

Emily’s Granola

One of my good friends, Minnemie, taught me this recipe while sitting around the table in her cozy little kitchen.  I have changed it a little bit, but it is mostly the same recipe that she gave me.  If any of you know Ironman, you know that he eats A TON of food.  So, the only thing that keeps him full from breakfast until lunch is a huge bowl of homemade granola with rice milk and a banana...and coffee...don't forget the coffee!  I make this recipe just about every two weeks to keep his supply stocked.  

I had always thought that homemade granola would be the hardest thing to ever make, but it is actually very easy!  Feel free to use my recipe and change the ingredients to make the recipe into what your taste buds prefer.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

(Scroll to the bottom for recipe)

First, I pour the entire canister of oats into a big container.  I like to do this in the storage container that I keep it in once it’s baked and cooled.  I add a bag of sliced almonds, a bag of chopped walnuts and a lot of cinnamon.  A lot of cinnamon. You can use different nuts, like pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds, and you don't have to add cinnamon...it's your granola!  Try whatever nuts and spices that you want to get the right texture and flavor. I mix all of the dry ingredients.  Then, I pour one cup of melted coconut oil (you can also use canola oil) over the dry ingredients.  And then one cup of honey over that.  

When all of the honey and coconut oil have been mixed in, the granola should look something like this.    It actually can wear your arms out mixing this well, so it is a good time to ask a man (aka Ironman) to do the hard work.  

Now it's time to cook your granola.  I put mine on two large cookie sheets and cook it for 30 minutes, stirring it every 10 minutes.  Try to keep the granola away from the edges because it tends to burn it.  If you want to add raisins, craisins, dried wild blueberries, or something like it, pour them on top of the granola for the last 10 minutes.  If they sit on the granola the full 30 minutes, they end up bursting open and burning.

Once the granola is done cooking and cooling, you should store it in a large container in the freezer.  Then, if you have a husband that eats as much as mine, you will do this all over again in two weeks!!!

Homemade Granola:

1 canister oats

1 bag sliced almonds

1 bag chopped walnuts

cinnamon (I don't measure...)

1 cup melted coconut oil

1 cup honey

Directions: 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Mix all dry ingredients

Pour in melted coconut oil and honey and mix with dry ingredients

Cook for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes

Cool and store in freezer

Enjoy!

Where have I been...?!?!?!?!

     So...you all may be wondering what happened to me?  Did I drop off of the face of the earth?  Did I quit blogging?  No...no...nothing like that.  I have just been BUSY!!!  I know that is the typical excuse, but it's true!  Although I can't update you on every little thing I've done since last September, I've tried to give you the biggest highlights!

     Well, as you all know (as my dedicated blog followers), we spent the EnTiRe month of September on a USA Road Trip!  It has been on my Bucket List my whole life and then switched to mine and Nick's joint Bucket List the day that we got married!  What a trip!  It was one of the best things that we ever did together and we suggest that every couple do it before they have kids!!!

     Then, once we got back home to South Carolina, I got heavily into my homemaker mode.  I cleaned and cleaned-out like crazy.  I cooked and tried lots of new recipes.  I was so happy to have switched from working full-time to working part-time...I feel like I have more time to be the kind of wife I want to be for Nick.  It's the best treat ever to have Nick get home from work and all of the cleaning, laundry, cooking and errands have already been taken care of by me!  After a hard day of work, I just feed Nick with yummy food, let him sit back and relax and it keeps us both happy!

     For the month of November, I had my friend Michaela visiting me from Northern Ireland!  That's the "curse" of traveling and living overseas...all of your friends end up in foreign countries.  But, the major blessing is that you get to travel to visit them too!  Nick and I are currently saving up money so that we can return the favor and visit her in Northern Ireland...:)

     During December, Nick and I took a trip down memory lane.  When we were dating, we drove to Asheville for the day and had lunch in this huge artsy booth place with a cute little soda shop.  We went back to Asheville for our five year wedding anniversary and walked around downtown until we found that same soda shop!  We enjoyed another great lunch, just like the one we enjoyed over six years earlier.

     Talking about wedding anniversaries, my sister Mary Ashley got engaged in August and then married in April!  We spent months talking about ideas, dreaming (mostly while browsing Pinterest) and planning.  We had lots of girl time with several special Bridal Showers, a Sisters-Only Bachelorette Weekend and, of course, the actual Wedding!

Bridal Shower

Bachelorette Weekend (YES, we made her wear that sash and veil the entire three days, everywhere we went, except while we slept)

Family Wedding Photo

While all of this was going on, we have also been in the process of getting our own little first home!!!  Last June, one of my dad's friends was planning on tearing down this cute little place in order to build something bigger and better in it's place.  Turns out, tearing down a house isn't cheap!  So, he told my dad that if we could figure out how to get it off of the property, we could take it!  My dad is a genius and came up with a great plan...

We stripped the house of all of the materials on the outside, inside, underneath and everywhere.  Everything was removed as carefully as possible so that we can REDUCE, REUSE and RECYCLE!!!

After removing all of the materials that we could, we cut the house in half to get it ready to be moved to its new home!!!

In took two days to move the two pieces of the house.  It only had to go 1/4, but the process was slow because of all of the tree limbs, power lines and one main street that we had to cross.  Many people stopped to watch all of the excitement and even followed the house to see where it was going...it's not every day you see a house rolling down the street!

Once the two pieces made it to our property, they were put side by side and the steel rods were removed once the foundation was built up under the house.

Here is the latest photo.  You can see the foundation, the new porch and on the right, we now have a third window!

It's such an amazing thing because of how Nick always said that he wanted to build us a house.  Although he didn't build this one totally from scratch, he (along with other guys, including my dad) has done months and months of work to remodel and fix it back up.  It will be so special when we finally move in and get to enjoy all of the hard work!

So...WOW...this was a very long post!  Now that the wedding is over and things seem to have calmed down, I am going to try to get back to blogging...I miss it!