Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

Hello everyone!

Hope you all enjoyed your weekend. I know I did! It was our first beautiful summer weekend here in the Twin Cities, so Mr. G and I took full advantage of it - we were on the lake the whole weekend! On Friday and Saturday we went on a couple boats on a nearby lake with some friends. We also got our tan on, did a little swimming (very little - the water is still freezing!), and I even tried tubing for the first time! Today we went to Lake Calhoun with some friends and brought our dog Molly along. She got to try something new today, too - swimming! I wasn't sure how she would react to the water, and as it turns out, she's not a big fan... It took a lot of tugging and pulling to get her in at all, and eventually Mr. G just had to pick her up and dump her in. Once in the water, she half-swam / half-flailed around, splashing and scratching all the way to the shore haha. After that, she was done. I'm hoping she'll do more swimming at the cabin in a couple weeks - maybe she won't be as scared with fewer people around? She's so big, though, which makes it even funnier that she's scared of everything!

Here are photos of Molly's pitiful attempts at swimming:



wet and unhappy


Also, as promised, here is the recipe I used for the chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes I made for Memorial Day. I found it through Cupcakes Take the Cake, a great cupcake blog I follow. The cupcakes turned out amazing! Possibly my best yet - it's a tie between these and the fresh strawberry ones from Easter. I got to try new things with these, too; it was my first time using filling as well as piping on frosting. Although the piping bag took some getting used to (and was extremely messy), I think the final result was pretty good! Everyone else seemed to agree... It's a good thing I saved a couple for Mr. G, because the other 22 were gone in 3 days!

My favorite part about these cupcakes was the frosting. There is SO MUCH BUTTER in this recipe, but you can especially taste it in the frosting. I love it! When it comes to baking, the more butter the better. Also, I may or may not have eaten some frosting by itself these past few days... No shame.

Here are some photos of my cupcakes as a working progress:

fresh out of the oven

frosted

sprinkled and ready to go!

These are also now featured on a baking blog called Sweet as Sugar Cookies. Check it out!

Mr. G and I have our first volleyball game on Tuesday as part of our league, so wish me luck! I haven't played in a while... I also haven't met most of my teammates, so I hope they're not too competitive, or I may be sitting most of the games out haha.

Enjoy your week!

<3 Mrs. G

P.S. As an update from my last post, our toilet is fixed!! Mr. G and his friend were able to take it apart, remove the cleaning sponge, and put it all back together. We even got a new seat, and we didn't have to call a plumber! Yay!

London Calling

Guess who has the day off? :)

I'll be putting it to use cleaning, decorating the house, and - if I feel like it - crafting. I know I said I would try to get one more DIY project done before my parents come to town tomorrow, but I'm not convinced it will happen... I'm still shocked I finished the tiles!

In unrelated news, I really want to go to London. I always have - it's pretty much top of my list - but after watching the royal wedding and the King's Speech in the same weekend, I want to go more than ever. Thankfully, Mr. G is on the same page. He liked the King's Speech more than he would probably admit (as well as the royal wedding), and he is particularly excited about the prospect of going during the Olympics next year... I'm right on board with that idea!

We're in no position to be saving right now for an extravagant European vacation, but who knows where we'll be next year... In the meantime, we have to save up to rent a cabin this summer and fly out to Vegas this fall for our one-year anniversary. :) So many things we want to do! Let's hope we can afford it all and still be able to eat... But hey, you're only young once, right?

Speaking of money, this blog has inspired me to (finally) start trying to find some freelance writing work. If you know of anyone or any company in need of a blogger/copywriter/editor, hook me up! ;) But seriously... I would love you forever.

Last bit of news: our dog, Molly, got her *professional* haircut today, and she looks fabulous. Her winter coat is finally gone - she is ready for summer! Here she is (she knows how good she looks):

That's all for now!

Feel free to comment if you are traveling anywhere fun this year, or know of great places to find deals on London vacations. OR if you want to hook me up with a writing gig! ;)

<3 Mrs. G

DIY: Talavera Tiles

As promised, here are photos of the Mexican-inspired tiles I painted for my kitchen:

I think they turned out pretty well! The red/orange one is my favorite - I love all the fun details. All of these were inspired by tiles I've seen somewhere - one was based on my mini-tile I got in Mexico, two were based on Mexican jewelry I saw on Etsy, and one was actually based on one of my ceramic sugar canisters, which also turned out to have talavera designs. Funny thing is, they were Mr. G's before we got married! I love when things work out like that. :)

The only direction I can give on making these is to measure your perimeter designs and your center to make sure everything is symmetrical. From there, I just free-handed it. My advice is to be creative, have fun with it, and don't be afraid to make mistakes! Paint is actually very forgiving, so it's not as bad as it seems. Plus, perfection is boring. ;) As for supplies, I bought the tiles from Home Depot (they are real floor tiles!), and the paint/brushes from Michael's. I used acrylic paint, and I was happy with how it turned out, but you can also buy ceramic paint, which may have been a better idea in retrospect.

In other news, we are getting the house ready for this weekend, because my parents are coming to visit! Thankfully, we are pretty much unpacked now - I just have to make sure everything is good to go and try to get some more crafts done! I still don't know how I'm going to hang up these tiles (or if they'll even hang), and I have set a goal of finishing one more DIY project before this weekend. I think I can manage that, since I'm only working two days this week.

Also, speaking of DIY, Mr. G and I made the mistake of attempting to cut our dog's hair ourselves yesterday... We have an adult lab/collie with long, bushy hair. Bathing her is a task in itself (and requires extensive clean-up), but cutting her hair was one big struggle. We took her out to the garage, used Mr. G's cutting shears (yep, I cut his hair!), and went to town. The shears didn't work well, though, so we eventually we just started hacking off her hair with scissors, and while she definitely has shorter hair now, she looks like she just survived some form of medieval torture. Ok, so maybe it's not that bad, but it is pretty funny; I keep finding random long hairs sticking out of nowhere. So, I get the honor of taking her into Petco in the morning to get it fixed, and I can't wait to see the faces of the grooming staff when we walk in. This is one DIY project I don't think I'll repeat.

How are you guys celebrating Mother's Day?? Got any good dessert recipes for me to borrow? :)

<3 Mrs. G

Hello, Minne-snow-ta!

Hey guys!

Back by "popular demand" (ie: family, friends, and mom's co-workers), I have decided on a new venture of internet ramblings inspired by my very recent move to the arctic tundra (ie: Minnesota). For those of you who followed my previous blog, New England Newlywed, please forgive me for the lack of posts... I realized a little too late that devoting a blog entirely to cooking was not only too one-dimensional for me, but also pretty boring. I can assure you, though, that I still love cooking as well as trying new recipes, and some of that will definitely make its way into this blog. But seeing as recipe writing is laborious and generally unexciting, I think I can safely say that this is not Julie & Julia.

So, to catch you all up on the lives of Mr. and Mrs. G, here is a brief recap of the past 6 months:

Connecticut is lame, so we moved.

Now that you're all caught up, let me tell you a little about why and how we came to live in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. For those of you who don't know, Minnesota is Mr. G's homeland. And if you know him, you know that he thinks Minnesota is God's gift to the world, and he has been ready to move back as soon as he left a year and a half ago. I am from Nashville originally, but I visited Mr. G often in MN when he lived here, and while I didn't quite think it was heaven on earth, I did really like the place. I knew we would probably come to live here eventually since he felt so strongly about it, but I never though it would happen only 6 months after I moved to CT. But while I was here in January, I realized I didn't want to go back home, and I felt a sudden and strong desire to live here. It was as if God knocked me over the head, and I knew I could make the decision to change our lives and make my husband the happiest man in the world. At that point, I realized what I had to do - admit to Mr. G that he was right. He predicted I wouldn't like CT, and I stubbornly tried to, but I just didn't. It never felt like home.

Mrs. G's mom suggested that we write down all the things that God did to make it possible for us to move, so that's exactly what I'm going to do, and then some. I've made 3 lists - everything that went right, everything that went wrong, and an intro to Minnesota culture. Let's start with the good stuff.

Everything that went right:

• The renters living in Mr. G's house (which he owned previously) decided to move out right as we started discussing the possibility of moving. They left about a month ago, and now we are living in our first house. :)
• Mr. G's company allowed him to keep his job and work from home in MN, so we didn't have to worry about both of us finding work out here.
• In addition, they gave him a major promotion AND a raise... Crazy, right?? Especially in this economy! We needed the extra money for the move as well as to cover expenses while I search for a job, so that was a completely unexpected but very helpful blessing.
• I got more interviews before even moving to MN than I ever got while living in CT. I've had 2 so far, and I have 2 more lined up.
• Our car insurance is less than half the cost out here, and our expenses as a whole are reduced significantly.
• We got a very large tax return that we used to help fund the move as well as buy our dream couch. :)

Everything that went wrong:

• When we started moving into the house, we realized that the renters didn't leave it in as good of shape as we had anticipated. In addition, I realized that there was more work to be done than I had planned for.
• We were supposed to pick up our couch the day we moved in; we planned it that way because we had the moving truck and thus wouldn't have to pay to have it delivered. However, when Mr. G called the store, they said someone broke ours and that we would have to wait a week for the replacement to come in. They never called to tell us, so of course we didn't bring our couch from CT. We have been sitting on the air mattress in the living room.
• Comcast installed a faulty cable box, so we returned it for a new one. That one didn't work either. So for a couple days we had no TV to watch from the air mattress.
• We also haven't had wireless internet since our router hasn't come in yet. This means that we are going over on our data plans this month because I've been using 3G on my phone to keep from going stir crazy, and Mr. G's brother used his phone to play games the entire drive out here.
• Our precious dog, Molly, was perfect the whole road trip, but as soon as she got here, she started acting CRAZY. She has always been a mild-mannered, well-behaved dog, but this move has messed with her head. She now humps anything and everything, and she even got a little aggressive with a friend's dog. I swear she has gender confusion.
• Our friend's dog (Kenzie) also has a ton of energy, which she harnessed to run full-speed at our screen door leading to the porch. We now have a lovely Kenzie-shaped hole there. In return, Molly decided she would scratch up their screen door, so I guess we're even now.
• We locked ourselves out our second night in the house. We had replaced the lock on the door, but I didn't realize you could open it while it was still locked... Oops. Thankfully, Mr. G is skilled at breaking and entering...
• We got an inch of snow already. :( Hopefully the weather will improve soon!

Minnesota Culture 101:

• There is nothing better than a Minnesota accent. It's a hilarious blend of Norwegian and Canadian with long o's and flat a's. Plus, there are the awesome colloquialisms: "ohhh man," "you betcha!" and my personal favorite: "uff da."
• Since pretty much everyone out here is of Scandinavian origin, they are pretty much all blonde and fair-skinned. This is the opposite of Connecticut, where Mr. G and I were lonely Anglo-Saxons in a sea of Italians.
• There are also quite a few large families out here, especially in the rural areas. Mr. G actually hails from a family of 9 including his parents. A neighboring family is somewhere in the teens.
• Homeschooling is more common here, or at least more than I've seen. Mr. G was homeschooled for most of his education, as were all his siblings. Most of his friends were homeschooled, too. I never knew a single person growing up who was homeschooled. But then again, maybe that's because I met everyone at school...
• Much like the South, people tend to marry young out here. I've also seen a lot of short engagements, which is interesting to me. Although mine wasn't exactly long, but that was mostly due to Mr. G's urging!
• Last but not least, all the women out here are pregnant. Seriously. There must be something in the water.
• These are all very large generalizations, of course, but are all based on my observations as an "outsider," though I guess I'm one of them now! I've been polishing my accent...

Well, I think that just about sums it up for now. You can anticipate forthcoming posts about decor, crafts, and job hunting, all of which consume my life right now. Plus maybe a few recipes from CT that I was particularly proud of. :)

Goodnight!

<3 Mrs. G