Holiday Baking

This year, I've been so busy. I had hoped to get a lot of baking done for the holidays, but sadly I did not. Christmas kinda snuck up on me this year. I did some baking though. On Christmas Day my sister and I made Cranberry Bliss Bars a la Starbucks (even though I'm not a big fan of Starbucks, but that's another post). They are SOOOO good. They were quick and easy to make too. Gotta love it. Here's a picture. Please excuse the poor quality. It's from my camera phone.



Here's the recipe I found from Recipezaar:

1½ hours 40 min prep
Cake
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cups light brown sugar, packed
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla or orange extract
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup diced dried cranberries
6 ounces white chocolate, cut into chunks
Frosting
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
4 teaspoons lemon juice or 2 teaspoons orange extract
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup diced dried cranberries
Drizzled Icing
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon milk
2 teaspoons vegetable shortening
orange zest, garnish (optional)
Not the one? See other Cranberry Bliss Bars Recipes
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Beat butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer until smooth. Add eggs, vanilla, ginger, and salt; beat well.
Gradually mix in flour until smooth.
Mix 3/4 cup diced dried cranberries and white chocolate into the batter by hand.
Pour batter into a well-greased 9x13-inch baking pan and spread evenly.
Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until cake is light brown on the edges.
Let cool.
Frosting: combine cream cheese, powdered sugar, lemon juice and vanilla with an electric mixer until smooth.
When the cake has cooled, spread frosting over the top of cake.
Sprinkle top with diced cranberries.
Icing: Whisk powdered sugar, milk, and shortening.
Drizzle icing over cranberries in a sweeping motion or use a pastry bag with a fine tip.
Allow cake to sit for several hours, then slice the cake lengthwise (the long way) through the middle.
Slice the cake across the width three times making a total of eight rectangular slices.
Slice each of those rectangles diagonally creating 16 triangular slices.

Gotta love on-line shopping

This year, I did some of my Christmas shopping online. I like to do this for a few reasons:

1. I don't have to fight the crowds
2. I can shop whenver I like and in my pajamas no less!
3. Sometimes it can be cheaper to buy things online than in the stores.

Whenever I buy stuff on-line I always do some research first. I will look for coupon codes and I also use Mr. Rebates. I LOVE Mr. Rebates. With this website, you can get a certain percent cash back on your purchases at various online stores such as Nordstrom, Sephora, and even the itunes store. Granted, sometimes the cashback is only 1% of your purchase, but this adds up. Especially if you are going to make these purchases anyways, you might as well use Mr. Rebates. This past Christmas I got back a total of $46.75! How can you not love that?

ps
I'll blog about my Christmas festivities within the next few days. My camera is broken, so I have to try and get some pics from my cousins.

Quick present buying vent, er, I mean update

Remember my friend, H? The one that constantly makes me buy and return her presents. As I said before, this year she asked for a really good hair dryer for Christmas. I had no intention of buying it for her. I just planned on giving her the cash for it so that she could go buy it herself. I did not want a repeat of Christmases past. The past two Christmases I have purchased and then had to return her present because she changed her mind. This year I knew better and boy was I right. Two days after she told me she wanted a hair dryer she texted me and told me she changed her mind and didn't want it anymore. She no longer knew what she wanted. Annoying as all hell, isnt' it?

Merry Christmas!

I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. My family starts celebrating tonight. We 're going to mass at 6pm and then heading over to my parents house for dinner and presents. All of my cousins, aunts, uncles will be there. The festivities continue tomorrow morning at my aunt's house. I can't wait! I love my family and I look forward to fun times tonight. Be safe everyone and have fun! I'll try to post some pictures on Wednesday

Christmas bells are ringing

I did some more Christmas shopping today. I was out for four hours today - whew! AND I only got presents for 2 people. AND I'm not even done shopping for these two people. Here's what I got:

Carry on luggage for the boy, except in black. We're going to Vegas this weekend so I'll be giving it to him tomorrow. He's been wanting a new carry-on luggage with the spinner wheels for awhile now. I was in Macy's and saw it on sale so I scooped it up for him.



I bought a bunch of orange ginger products at the Bath and Body Works outlet for my friend H, the same friend that I blogged about before (asks for a specific item and then makes me return it later). I got hand lotion, body wash, shampoo and conditioner. I'm going to put it all in a little basket and give her money. She said she wanted a nice hair dryer, but I'm just going to give her the money and she can buy it herself. Last year she asked for a hair straightener. I bought her one, she tried it and she didn't like it so she asked me to return it and just give her the cash. This year I don't want to have to deal with the hassle if she wants to return the hair dryer.

There were A LOT of people at the mall today. Even at 10 am it was crowded, which surprised me. The next chance I have to go shopping is Thursday. Wish me luck!

Weekend Wrap-up

My weekend was a mix up of boring and fun. Here it goes.

Friday:
Came home from work. Cooked bistro style short ribs with a recipe from Tyler Florence of the Food Network. It was my first time making it. I really liked it. It's definately something I'll be making again. After dinner, I took my accounting final. I take the class online and I have to say, accounting is really hard to learn on your own. I did better on the final than I thought I had expected, so that was nice. I ended up getting a B in the class. Yay me!

Saturday:
Woke up and then ran errands in the morning. I went to Ralphs to buy some groceries, Kohl's to make use of the 15% friends and family coupon, and then to the bank. The boy and his family came down Saturday evening. They came down in their van to help some family members move some items. I decided to cook dinner for them since the boy is always telling them how I cook all the time and that I cook well. Plus, they always take me out to eat and I thought this would be a nice way to return the favor. I'm always a little afraid to cook for people the first time. What if they don't like my food? Then I'd feel bad because they might feel obligated to finish the food on their plate even though they may potentially hate it. Because of this fear of mine of cooking for people for the first time, I wanted to cook something that I've made for lots of people and that they have all liked. I decided to cook lasagna and banana pudding, both made completely from scratch and both have been enjoyed by many people in the past. Guaranteed winner, right? Wrong. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and even had seconds . . . except for the boys mom. She had her one piece of lasagna on her plate forever. Everyone was already on their second piece and she still had most of her first piece on her plate and she would put the tiniest piece of food on her fork when she would eat it. The only thing she said about dinner was that the salad was good. The salad that came from a bag! I was a little disappointed and a little bit embarassed that she didn't like it. Then I served my home made pudding and she had one bite and that was it. Again, everyone else had 2 servings each. I really don't understand why his mom didn't like my cooking. She doesn't cook so they eat all of their meals out. Mostly they eat at places like Sizzler, Burger King, Coco's, Olive Garden, etc. Now, don't get me wrong, there is nothing bad about those places, but they aren't the best most flavorful places in the world. I figured, if she loves Coco's so much, my food had to at least be as good as that.

Sunday:
Sunday was a very estrogen charged day - MUCH better than Saturday. Woke up early and got my hair cut and highlighted. I love my hair the day I get it cut because my stylist does such a great job of cutting it and blows out my hair for me. Every time I get my hair cut, I get a compliment on it. At least one person, if not more, will come up to me and say what a great hair cut I have. I'm not trying to be vain or anything. I take none of the credit for how good my hair looks. That all goes to Trevor, my stylist. I can never make my hair look that good on my own so they day I get it cut is my best hair day. Went to lunch at a nearby thai place with my sister and my friend H. Then we went on a shopping marathon. We went to Nordstrom rack and Off Fifth. We were on our way to Fashion Valley mall and made a quick pit stop at Coffee Bean to refuel then it was time for more shopping. We all went back to my place to eat left-over lasagna and watched a movie on On Demand. Lucky for me, I have Monday off too. I'll blog about that tonight or tomorrow.

Cute picture of the day

My cousin had a baby a month ago today. I saw her for the very first time today. Here's a picture of her sleeping.



Sooooo cute! As cute as babies are though, I am SO not ready to have one of my own. I do want to have kids though. 3 would be nice. 2 boys and one girl. I'd really like to have 2 of each though, but kids are so darn expensive. Especially girls. They just suck all the money right out of you. I should know. I did that to my parents. My clothes closet thanks them.

Argh!!!!!!

I just went got back from Bed Bath and Beyond. The charging station I was planning on buying the boy is nowhere to be found. I wanted to buy it in store so that I could use the 20% off one item coupon (yes, I'm that cheap - a couple of dollars here and there makes a difference). Since I couldn't find it in the store I figured I'd buy it online, but its out of stock! Now what do I do?

Peanuuuuuut! Peanut butter and jelly

I've been having some weird cravings for peanut butter sandwiches lately. The other night I was in bed watching tv and I suddenly wanted a pb&j sandwich. Sadly, I had none of the ingredients available. How sad is that? Who doesn't have at least bread in their pantry? It was late so I didn't feel like going to the store to buy it. It took me a few days to buy the ingredients, but I did finally have my sandwich. Then, the other day I was watching Paula Deen on the Food Network. She made a peanut butter and banana sandwich. It looked soooo good. I made myself one for breakfast today. I did switch it up though. I started by spreading Nutella on two slices of bread. I followed thatwith peanut butter. I then added sliced bananas.

I put the pieces of bread together and browned on a pan. It was quite yummy if I do say so myself.

Santa Claus is coming to town.

With the holidays coming up, I've been trying to come up with good gift ideas with the people on my list. I think I have just about the hardest people there are in the world to shop for. The boy buys everything he wants, so it's not like there's anything out there that he really wants, but hasn't bought for himself yet. My friends and family are sooooo super picky and particular about things, so its hard to shop for them. One friend will ask for something specific. I will go out and buy it and then a few days later she'll say she no longer wants it and to just give her a gift card to Nordstrom. Grrrr....annoying, isn't it? Everyone on my list pretty much just gets cash. It's so boring though. I love shopping for presents and then wrapping them up so nice and pretty. I think I need new friends. I'll probably just buy everyone something small and then give them cash as well. So far I'm getting a charging station for the boy from Bed Bath and Beyond that I saw Just Jenn talk about on her blog.



I also need gifts for a White Elephant gift exchange. I don't know what to get. Any ideas? The gift needs to good for both sexes and between $50-60.

oh the weather outside is frightful

It's raining in San Diego. It hardly ever rains here. When it does, it rains like crazy for a few hours (sometimes day) and then its clear skies for months. The rain this weekend is really putting a damper on my weekend plans (pun not intended). Today we were going to go get our Christmas tree. Usually we get it the weekend of Thanksgiving, but we've been so busy this holiday season that we've been putting it off. We were going to go early this morning, but with the rain it's a no go. Tomorrow morning I plan on driving up to LA to see the boy. That should be fun if its still raining. It'll make a 2 hour drive about 3 hours or more. I look forward to it immensly. I was excited to go to LA to see the boy AND our dog. I still get to see the both of them, but I was hoping to take the dog to the dog park. Again, a no go with the rain. I know I'm doing a lot of complaining about the rain and we need it and blah blah blah, rain is good. I guess I just need to have a new weekend plan. When its raining out, my favorite thing to do is stay inside and make a nice fire, watch a movie, and cuddle up with the boy. It should be a nice cozy weekend in for us.

Shouldn't you be working?

I'm at work right now, just killing some time before lunch time.

1. How old will you be in five years?
32, almost 33. gosh, i feel old

2. Who did you spend at least two hours with today?
everyone at work. been here since 9 am. it is now 12:15 am.

3. How tall are you?
5'4

4. What do you look forward to most in the next six weeks?
Christmas!

5. What's the last movie you saw?
It's been awhile. I *think* it was Harry Potter.

6. Who was the last person to call you?
the boy

7. Who was the last person you called?
the boy

8. What was the last text message you received?
From my friend, asking if she can borrow a cocktail dress for a holiday party

9. Who was the last person to leave you a voicemail?
i have no idea.

10. Do you prefer to call or text?
depends on the situation. if it's to just communicate some info real quick, then normally text.

11. What were you doing at 12am last night?
trying to sleep. i think i had the tv on and I was watching the food network

12. Are your parents married/separated/divorced
married

13. When is the last time you saw your mom?
Yesterday at her house

14. What color are your eyes?
brown

15. What time did you wake up today?
about 7:10

16. What are you wearing right now?
brown pin-stripe slacks and a brown sweater

17. What is your favorite Christmas song?
hmmm, i don't know

18. Where is your favorite place to be?
in bed with the boy

19. Where is your least favorite place to be?
work and/or school

21. Where will you be in 10 years?
hopefully living in san diego, married with at least one kid

22. Do you tan or burn?
Tan! I get tan so super fast. It isn't even funny

23. What did you fear was going to get you at night as a child?
hmmm, just bad people trying to kill/hurt/kidnap me

24. What was the last thing to make you smile?
i can't remember. isn't that sad?

25. How many tv's do you have in your house?
3

26. How big is your bed?
queen

27. Do you have a laptop or desktop computer?
ibook

28. What color are your sheets?
brown sheets, orange duvet, and brown coverlet

29. How many pillows do you sleep with?
4

30. What is your favorite season?
late spring/summer

31. What do you like about fall?
when the air is nice and crisp and i'm inside with a fire burning and drinking something warm

32. What do you like about winter?
christmas

33. What do you like about the summer?
warm summer lazy days

34. What do you like about spring?
idk

35. How many states/provinces have you lived in?
2: Illinois and California

36. What cities/towns have you lived in?
great lakes, san diego, los angles

37. Do you prefer shoes, socks, or bare feet?
depends on the situation. flip flops?

38. Are you a social person?
i can be

39. What was the last thing you ate?
lemon loaf cake

40. What is your favorite restaurant?
its hard to say. i LOVE eating so i have many. Here are some favorites: Alejo's, California Roll Factory, Rama, Versailles

41. What is your favorite ice cream?
Its a toss up between coffee and mint chocolate chip

42. What is your favorite dessert?
anything with chocolate in it and i'm happy. I do love everything at Hans and Harry's in Bonita

43. What is your favorite kind of soup?
clam chowder, but on cold rainy days I like tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches

44. What kind of jelly do you like on your PB & J sandwich?
strawberry

45. Do you like Chinese food?
of course!

46. Do you like coffee?
sure do

47. How many glasses of water, a day, do you drink on average?
less than i should that's for sure

48. What do you drink in the morning?
coffee

49. Do you sleep on a certain side of the bed?
right side

50. Do you know how to play poker?
sure, though prob not well.

51. Do you like to cuddle?
yes

52. Have you ever been to Canada?
i have not

53. Do you eat out or at home more often?
home

54. Last person you hugged?
the boy

55. Do you speak any other languages?
i do not, unfortunately.

56. Have you ever gotten stitches?
nope

57. Have you ever ridden in an ambulance?
again, no

58. Do you prefer an ocean or a pool?
i prefer an ocean

59. Do you prefer a window seat or an aisle seats?
aisle, that way i can put my legs in the aisle and i don't have to climb over people if i need to go to the bathroom

60. Do you know how to drive stick?
i wish i did

61. What is your favorite thing to spend money on?
i enjoy spending money on everything.

62. Do you wear any jewelry 24/7?
i wear an 'm" necklace from tiffany's almost every day. I take it off on rare occasions.

63. What is your favorite TV show?
favorite that is on tv now? grey's anatomy maybe

64. Can you roll your tongue?
i sure can

65. Who is the funniest person you know?
probably the boy

66. Do you sleep with stuffed animals?
no

67. What is the main ring tone on your phone
i think it's a song by robin thicke. wanna love you girl

68. Do you still have clothes from when you were little?
i probably do. i'm sure my mom kept some stuff

69. What red object is closest to you right now?
pen

70. Do you turn off the water while you brush your teeth?
i most certainly do. and if you're reading this and you don't - shame on you! conserve water!

71. Do you sleep with your closet doors open or closed?
closed

72. Would you rather be attacked by a big bear or a swarm of bees?
neither

73. What were you doing at 12 in the afternoon?
probably going to eat lunch

74. What do you dip a fry in?
ketchup or ranch

75. What is your favorite food?
sushi and italian

76. Can you change the oil on a car?
no

77. Have you ever run out of gas?
nope (knock on wood)

78. What was the last book you read?
for one more day by mitch albom

79. Do you read the newspaper?
sometimes, mostly i read stuff online

80. Do you have any magazine subscriptions?
glamour, cosmo, people, reaady made, and self

81. What were you doing at 7pm last night?
eating dinner i think

82. Do you watch soap operas?
not anymore. used to watch one life to live, days of our lives, and general hospital

83. Do you dance in the car?
i do, wanna join me?

84. What radio station did you last listen to?
z90?

85. What picture is in the picture frame closest to you?
on of me and the boy take a few years ago

86. What was the last note you scribbled on a piece of paper?
i don't recall

87. Last person you cried with on the phone?
again, i don't recall

88. What is your favorite board game?
cranium!!!! i will so kick your ass at it

89. When was the last time you attended church?
just this sunday

90. What are your plans for tomorrow?
work and hopefully the gym

91. What is the longest you have ever camped out in a tent?
couple days

92. Who was the last person to go out of their way to do something extra special for you?
probably the boy