A year in review pt. 4

So this is it, the grand finale! I'm really glad that I did this because I genuinely forgot how awesome my year really has been. If you don't know what I'm talking about go check out parts one, two and three to catch up. Anyway, lets bring on the final quarter of 2012.

October

So I don't know if you're familiar with this video:

It's completely fake but I still get a really big kick out of it. So back in October I was all bummed about thinking about how it'd been a year since we put my beloved dog down and someone posted a really sad video and I just couldn't take it so in order to combat the sadness I posted the above one and then was inspired by the line "I want them in a basket and I want little bow ties and I them to be on a rainbow..." to make the most glorious picture because I just love The Beef so much and I want him in a basket, in a bow tie on a rainbow. 

Needless to say I perked right up. 

In October Connecticut becomes the land of fests. Apple fest, garlic fest, etc. Really it's just an excuse to walk around a big field that has a bunch of tents set up where you can buy fair food and tons of homemade things. It's like pinterest but outside. We went to several and I noticed how The Beef and I react to these differently, he eats everything until he feels sick and I suddenly become very passionate about flavors and want to buy all the sauces, ever. I also got really obsessed with making Pumpkin Risotto.

We also took a day trip up to the Fly Creek Cider Mill which is one of my favorite places in the world. The store their is amazing and the cider is to die for. It's also about 10 minutes from the baseball hall of fame, we don't go this year though because we went last year. We did go exploring at Howe Caverns though which is always fun. 

You're probably wondering what the hell is in that bottom left picture. Well, I'm not ashamed to admit that that's the blank/pillow fort that I stayed in during Hurricane Sandy because The Beef was stranded at work. 

And finally, we were able to decorate our house for Halloween for the first time which was really fun if you ignore the fact that we didn't get a single person at the house on Halloween night.

November

I got really into collages in November.

I also took a solo road trip to MD to hang out with the fanciest pregnant lady that I know. 

Burnt out from all the risotto I made the month before I lost the will to cook, leading us to explore the world of pre-made food at the grocery store which always turned into a mini thanksgiving complete with all the trimmings. Pair it with hot chocolate or pumpkin egg nog and you're completely festive. 

We got together with friends for a poker game and I was a little rusty and unlucky so I got to sit on the sidelines from early on and watch The Beef rake in the chips. 

We decorated the house for Christmas as is our November custom and spent lots of time snuggling by the fire in our wood stove. 

December

One night I forgot to bring food to work and I was really hungry, the beef wasn't up to anything so he stopped by with an entire chicken and we at it in his truck. He had piano Christmas music playing because he is adorable, romantic and festive.

We also took the 7 hour road trip to visit his mother & step father out in Pennsylvania. It seems to  work the best for "everyone" if we leave at 11pm when I get out of work and I drive while the Beef sleeps. 

I baked so many things in december I've officially lost count. Cookies, cake pops, peanbut butter balls, it was a never ending fury in my kitchen. Dear Button of December 2013, I really hope you find this note. I know you're looking back fondly at the memories of last December where everyone loved your baked goods but honestly, you were traumatized, it was awful, and you swore to never do it again. So do yourself a favor and go easy this year. Love, December 2012 Button.

And finally December ment Christmas, with all the driving around and delivering presents and general awesomeness that the Holiday season brings. 

So there you have it my 2012 all packaged up for you.  How was your year? Do you like looking back? I think it's a nice reminder. Can't wait to see what the next year has in store for me though. 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from The Beef & Me! 

Hope Santa was good to you!

Things that make me happy.

I'm trying to lighten the mood in my brain so I started going through the pictures on my phone looking for a chuckle and here's what I found out. I figured I needed a double pick me up so instead of 5 things from my phone that make me happy I'm going to show you ten.

Text messages like this.

My salty sea captain boyfriend. 

The Beef staring at himself as a salty sea captain on my computer.

The Beef posing with a santa statue he found.

The ginger bread xmas tree The Beef & his man friend made over the weekend.

The awesome cake pop snowman I made.

The delightful gingerbread house Fishy and I made over the weekend.

The disembodied Santa & Mrs. Claus ornaments I got for Christmas.

Conversations like this.

Babies wearing the Christmas outfits I gave them.

Never again...

I did something very bad yesterday.

While out at the grocery store I stumbled upon some holiday flavored coffee creamers and I just could not resist. This is very strange because I usually just stick to my boring original flavored powered creamer and call it a day. I'm not even drinking as much coffee as I used to, sometimes I go a week without. Whatever the reason those two bottle came home with me and I was pumped to give them a try. So pumped that I had 2 gigantic cups of coffee very late in the day, if my caffeine tolerance had been higher this might not have been such an issue but I've been avoiding caffeine as much as possible lately so this was bad news. 

Flash forward to 2:30 this morning and I'm in my kitchen all wired, bug eyed and finishing up my 2nd batch of cake pops. I baked the cakes, rolled the dough, dipped the balls, bagged them up, tied the bags off and then curled the ribbon on the bags. I am nothing if not efficient. 90 cake pops later I still had trouble falling asleep.

For those curious the chocolate covered pops are chocolate cake with vanilla frosting and the white covered pops are red velvet with cream cheese frosting. 

These cake pops are always a big hit and I'm pretty sure about 50 of them are already spoken for. 

P.S Have you seen this? 

I'm guilty many of those things and I think it's hilarious. 

Speaking of selfies:

How perfect/awesome is this shirt? I'm pretty pumped about it. Not sure if you could tell. 

And the gifts just keep on coming!

I thought I'd round up some more of the givings from out little advent tree, 

just for shits and giggles. 

 On the 7th day of Christmas The Beef got this awesome magnet to celebrate the awesomeness that is his beard. 

On the 8th day of Christmas he bestowed upon me a new charm for my pandora bracelet to commemorate the fact that is is my "bearmouth"

On the 9th day of Christmas I geeked out and bestowed upon him a patch bearing the Jedi symbol because we're hot and nerdy like that. 

On the 10th day of Christmas he hit me back with the best note I have ever read in my entire life.

On the 11th day of Christmas I celebrated our mutual love for gotham's finest with a pin that was immedieatly adhered to his lucky fishing hat:

So on the 12th day of Christmas I got lucky and won $10.

And on the 13th day of Christmas the beard shrine grew:

To be continued...

So does anyone else get as big a kick out of dorky little gifts like we do?

I can't believe it took this long to share this

I don't know if I've mentioned this before or not but I'm kind of a big fan of penguins. Not real penguins, but cartoon penguins, specifically ones with hats on. I know this makes me sound like a crazy person, but whatever, we're all friends here. The nice thing about this weird little obsession of mine is that it almost seems normal at Christmas time and that's really the only time you'll seem indulge. I figured I'd mention this because I'm about to share my inside Christmas decorations with you and I didn't want you to wonder why there were so many penguins. Also keep in mind that this is only about 1/2 of my Christmas decorations as the rest are still in storage because I like having room to walk though my house. 

 Super comfy penguin pillow. Mistletoe conviently hung over the bedroom door. 

Super fun candy cane wreath I made. Fabric square that was last years xmas craft project.

Mr. & Mrs. Claus inherited from my grandparent flaking my bathroom.

Amazing Santa cookie jar. Why is it amazing? Well, my mom had one just like it when I was growing up. Eventually she gave it to me and I just loved it to death. A few years ago I accidentally broke it and no matter how much glue I used there was just no saving it. I was completely crushed, then one day I walked into a thrift store and there it was, just waiting for me to bring it home. My plushy penguin friend that I like to call Topper, who happens to be sporting a very flashy scarf that my BFF Fishy knitted for him.

Here you can see my love for tacky cheese at war with my down home sensibilities. 

 One day I'm going to an Elf on a Shelf terror.

Giant nutcracker and stocking holder b/c I'm still without a fireplace.

Santa collection photo bombed by another elf.

Another fabric square from last year.

Random Christmas items lining the window sill in the kitchen. Most of them nearly as old as me.

OMFG PENGUINS!

 These pot holders are up all year long, I just turn them around to try and hide the Christmas.

2 new additions this year in the form of the door mat and the adorable toilet rugs that I need to alter so they fit completely. The soap dispenser is an old friend you might remember from my old pink bathroom. 

Our little tree that I had to get this year because the one I normally use is just too damn big for the living room. It serves its purpose but I really really miss the gigantic one.

And of course us being full of Christmas spirit cheese.

Do you go nuts decorating inside too? Do you prefer tacky or traditional decorations? 

Sending Christmas Cards!

Every year my Christmas cards are in the mail before December gets here. I try to get them out the day after Thanksgiving. Mostly I do this because every year I have a different address and I want to get a jump on everyone so they can have my new address. This is, if they actually take the time to look at the return address I put on the envelope. Another reason is that for some reason I absolutely love it when people say "You were my first Christmas card this year!". I have no idea why but I get a really big kick out of it. 

Anyway, I neglected my blog last year so you I didn't get to share what our card looked like which is real shame because in my opinion it's kind of cute. We had a Christmas party last December and one of the features was backdrop we created and took pictures of everyone in front of, it came in handy Christmas card purposes and for a while a lot of my Facebook friends all had the same stripped background on their profile pictures which was something you don't see very often. So without further ado this is last years card:

Christmas Hats are awesome.

This year I used pinterest as my inspiration and had a friend come over and take some shots of us.  I'm not sure if you've pick up on this but I'm addicted to all things tacky and cheesy, The Beef included. So this year our card is apparently giving people a toothache. Mission accomplished.

This year was unique in that we had a special edition Christmas card. About 50 of the above cards went out and 10 of the one featured below. I don't normally do this but instead of using the stock card with pictures inserted (as shown above) for this 2nd design I did the entire thing myself and I wasn't sure how the quality of the image would turn out when vistaprint sent it back to me. Now that I know I can trust their website when they say the picture quality is good I may be taking this route more often. 

This is what a Christmas card looks like when The Beef and I collaborate. The Metal Christmas Card featuring fonts from Metallica, Megadeth & Children of Bodom. I had to throw the snowflakes in there to maintain some semblance of holiday cheer because some how the words Merry Christmas weren't enough to counter all of the black.  I'm actually pretty torn over how I feel about the card. Part of me thinks it's awesome and wants to throw up some horns to salute it and the more traditional part of me wants to clutch her pearls.

Now that we have this customizable power under control next years card should be something special.

What about you? Do you do picture cards? Do you do cards at all?