"More to come on that…"

I've posted a couple things lately and have said "more to come on that..." So now it's time, and here I am to tell you about them.

Thai Chicken Pizzas. I told you that I made these the other night. They were pretty dang good. I took the easy way out though - I bought pre-made pizza crusts, peanut sauce, and chicken breast. I originally got the idea from a recipe for Thai Chicken Naan Pizza. The night that I made this I didn't really have time to make my own naan and peanut sauce and cook chicken breast so I made it easy. I'd recommend either version though.

The legit way:

Thai Chicken Naan Pizza

How to Make Naan

The cheater way:

Spring wreath. I also mentioned that I severely burnt myself on some hot glue last night. The burns weren't so fun but I think the end result justified the means... I decided to go ahead and make a spring wreath for our front door. It's wishful thinking really… that spring is near enough to hang a wreath on the door - but a girl can dream.

I saw this idea on Pinterest and used it as inspiration.

And this is what I made for my front door.

I also made one for my mom. I liked the bow and I asked my roommate if I should make one for ours and she said, "Eh, I think that's more a mom bow…" Whatever that means. Since it's her house and her door I decided to leave the "mom bow" off. I do like it though…

Welp, I think that we're all caught up now. Hope you had a wonderful President's Day!

Things I Just Can't Handle

I don't have to work tomorrow which means I allowed myself to take a nap this afternoon. Sunday afternoon naps are the best. This one got away from me and lasted over 3 hours. Yes… 3 hours. So it's 1:27 am and I am wide awake. Therefore… I'm back with another post inspired by a stolen idea…

9 Things I Just Can't Handle:

1. People clipping their nails in public. I don't like the sound of it. I don't like the idea of it. I don't understand why they can't do it in the privacy of their own home. There are a few people who do this at work that are in the close vicinity of my desk. This is a problem.

2. Lukewarm showers. This is a first world problem for sure. But I like a hot shower. And lately our shower hasn't been as hot as preferred. Before you go and tell me to mess around with my hot water heater… I already did. And when I turned it up, it got colder. So I turned it down, and it got lukewarm again. I think I'd almost rather not shower at all than take a lukewarm shower. At least a cold shower isn't pretending to be something it's not. Am I right or am I right?

3. Nuts in baked goods. I'd be ok if nuts ceased to exist. Ok, I really love peanut butter and I suppose that would have to disappear if peanuts disappeared. But I could do without nuts. I especially could do without nuts in baked goods. For some reason it seems like grandmas really like to add nuts to baked goods. I don't know if it's in the handbook or what. I vow not to be that grandma. I vow to leave nuts out of baked goods… forever.

4. The DMV. I bought a new car the other day. (Oh my gosh - I can't believe I am just now telling you this! I bought a car. It's a 2008 black Toyota Rav 4 and I think I'm in love…) Since buying the new car I have this dread in the back of my head about going to the DMV to get new tags. Why is it so unorganized? Why hasn't the government figured it out yet? Why?

5. Burning your fingers with hot glue. I made a couple of spring wreathes tonight (more to come on that) and I burnt myself 3 or 4 times on hot glue. It hurts so bad. I already have a couple of blisters.

6. Turns out I can only think of 5 things right now… So that's good. I'd rather this list be shorter than longer.

A Day in the Life of Abby Thomason.

One of the many blog posts suggestions that I read last week when I was struck with writer's block was to document your day with photos… So I did that today. I picked a weekday because well… it's normal. I wanted to give you a glimpse of what a typical day (for the most part) looks like for Abby Thomason. Don't get too excited now…

This is me at 6:00 am. Who would have ever thought that I, Abby Thomason, would prefer to go into work this early. (Sorry, some of the picture quality is kind of bad.)

Quiet time before work. I just started reading Jesus Calling and I'm a fan. Typical breakfast? Two pieces of whole wheat toast and a cup of coffee.

As if coffee weren't enough, I often stop by Sonic for a Diet Coke on my way in to work. Yes… I know this is a horrible habit and is bad for me. But I do it anyway. "Hi, can I have a Route 44 Diet Cherry Coke with easy ice, please?"

 This is what my walk in to work looked like this morning.

 This is my desk. Double screens… don't act like you're not impressed.

 I have a window seat and I love it. One of the downsides is that it makes my area really cold. So I have a heated blanket under my desk. Yep - it's true.

My job is to listen to phone calls so this is what I look like the majority of the day. You know when you call an 800 number and they say, "This call is being recorded for quality assurance." I'm that person listening to assure that quality. It's glamorous… I know.

This is my co-worker Brian. He's my bud at work.

He wanted me to post this picture, too. We have a good time...

This is the view from my window. Not bad, eh?

Counting down the minutes until I get to leave work. 4:25 on the dot.

 I went grocery shopping after work. I am a bit of an apple snob - I normally only buy honeycrisp. But they were $3.99/lb the last time I went to the store and that's just absurd. A friend of mine said that braeburns are a close second to honeycrisps. We shall see…

 I made mini Thai Chicken Pizzas for dinner. More on that some other day… It was delicious.

Every Tuesday night, I go to a small group with my church. Normally we would meet at someone's house and discuss life, God, the Word, etc… But tonight we went bowling. Good times.

 Then I came home and cleaned up the kitchen because I left it a bit of a mess when I went to go bowling. And there's Dietrich.

 Most nights the only down time I get is right before bed. So I'll often end the day with checking e-mail, catching up on Pinterest, watching a little Netflix/Hulu, etc. Tonight I am ending it blogging about my normal ol' day.

And that's that. Nothing exciting… but you caught a glimpse of the life that is mine.

A dozen cupcakes… times ten.

You like how I posted about how I wanted to blog more and then didn't blog? That's awesome…

Moving on. 

I baked a lot this week. It was my church's 6 year anniversary today and they asked me to bake cupcakes for the celebration. I was originally tasked to bake 240 cupcakes while my friend was going to bake a cake. Thankfully… my friend volunteered to split the cupcakes with me and we let Costco provide the cake. That took the order to 120 cupcakes…

We originally were going to keep things simple: different variations of chocolate and vanilla cupcakes and frosting. Then I decided that was boring and that it'd be fun to complicate things like I normally do. I told my friend she could do the chocolate and vanilla and I would make different flavors… The cupcakes were a hit. So I thought I'd share the recipes with you. Just in case you ever want to mix things up from the usual chocolate and vanilla.

Lemon Poppy Seed Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting. I have made this in cake form before but never in a cupcake. I would recommend starting with a bake time of about 16 minutes. I started with 18 and they were a little overdone. 

Funfetti with Buttercream Frosting. I'm not ashamed: I used a box mix. I went with Pillsbury. And then I made my own buttercream frosting. 

Mocha Cupcakes with Mocha Frosting. These were some of the fastest to go…

Snickerdoodle Cupcakes. I used Martha Stewart's recipe for the cupcakes but use a different recipe than the recipe she recommends for the frosting. It's simply 3 sticks of unsalted butter (room temp), 4 cups of powdered sugar, and 1 tsp of vanilla. Cream the butter then gradually add the powdered sugar and once it's combined add the vanilla. (This time I also added a little cream to make it lighter.) Then of course, you sprinkle it with cinnamon sugar and something magical is born.

Happy cupcaking!

Writer's Block.

I've really been wanting to blog lately, but not a lot has been going on… This is actually a good thing. Life has been pretty busy the past few… months (or years...) - so to take a little breather is nice. But I'm a person who does things. There is a reason why I'm busy. I make it so. But I'm learning that it's important to slow down… Which is what I'm currently doing. And it feels… slow.

Moving on from the tangent of my "busy-ness" issues. I don't have much to blog about. I could tell you about these awesome cookies that I baked last week. Or the Thai Peanut Pasta that I made for the 3rd time and it's still good. But sometimes I wonder if you actually want to hear about that stuff.

So what did I do? I googled it. Googling seems to be the solution to most of my problems. (Ok, that's just not true. For example, what would happen if I searched "how to find a husband…" Can you imagine? Don't do it. I'm not gonna.) I googled "things to blog about". I came across: Sweet ideas: 50 things to blog about,  101 Blog Post Ideas That Will Make Your Blog "HOT", 100 Blog Topics For You!,  101 Fabulous Blog Topic Ideas… the list goes on. So it looks like I'm set to blog for at least the next 352 days and it will be sweet, HOT, and fabulous.

Writers do this, right? They have to find inspiration somewhere… Is this cheating? Maybe so. But I might become a broken record if I don't lean on some other ideas. "Hey, I like baking! Hey, I like trees. Hey, I like warm weather. Hey, I like to travel. Hey, life is busy. Hey, life is slow again. Hey, I want to be married. Hey, I baked a cheesecake. Hey, I made something pretty…" We could use some variety. So look forward to some different posts.

Let's do this...