Handmade Cards.

Last weekend I went and visited my dear friends Valeria and Jonathan. They are my best friends from college and they got married in November. I've been wanting to visit them at their new place in St. Louis for quite some time and finally made it happen.

We had a great weekend. Valeria did a better job recapping the weekend on her blog than I ever could so you can check that out here. I wanted to send them a thank you card for the wonderful weekend and as you may know, I am kind of against buying cards (except for a couple of weeks ago when I was in a hurry and broke my rule and bought cards for Joel and Jessie after visiting in Austin... at least they weren't Hallmarks...) So I made my own! Nothing too grand or complicated... But I loved making it for them. And according to Valeria's Instagram, I think she liked receiving it too.

Moral of the story: I need to start making and sending out cards again. It makes me, the creator, happy, and it makes the receiver happy, too. So let's do it.

Try-It Tuesday: Baked Brie.

Her picture looked better than mine...

I have had a few people ask me lately if I am still doing Try-It Tuesdays... Sadly, I've lost a bit of my desire to cook because it's not nearly as fun when you are cooking for one compared to four or more. I probably try a new recipe every other week or so though, so I am going to try to post about it more consistently.

Coincidentally enough, today is Tuesday and I just happened to try a new recipe! Two, in fact! I have seen recipes for baked brie all over the place and have wanted to try it but haven't really had the fancy occasion to bring it to. I think I mentioned it to my aunt Georgie once and she said something like, "Who needs an fancy occasion? Just make it. Your unca Dave and I would eat it!" So tonight we had a family get together and I did just that.

I had seen different ways to make baked brie and so I wanted to try out two tonight. One simple and another a tiny bit more complicated. The first way was basically brie cheese topped with apricot preserved, wrapped in frozen puff pastry (thawed), brushed with beaten egg, and baked at 375 degrees for 20 minutes. (There wasn't an official recipe for this one, I just kind of made it up based on recipes I've seen.) The second was the fancy one. It is called Cranberry and Pecan Brie En Croute. I saw this recipe on none other than Pinterest and it was what got me excited about baked brie in the first place. It was similar to the first in that it was brie wrapped in puff pastry but it had cranberries, cinnamon pecans, and brown sugar inside instead.

I served both at the same time with crackers, granny smith apples, honey crisp apples, and grapes. I asked my family which one they preferred and everyone agreed that the Cranberry and Pecan Brie En Croute was the winner. Apparently this time, the more complicated one paid off though I'd highly recommend both. If you are looking for an easy recipe to impress your friends, look no further. It has been found.

My much less appetizing of a picture.

Cranberry and Pecan Brie En Croute

A version similar to my Apricot Baked Brie

Society6.

Exchange, You and Me by Megan Leong.

My friend Megan is an artist. I love her work. It's bright, intriguing, creative... it's just good stuff. I've always wanted to buy a piece of Megan's but for her to be able to make money based on the hours she puts in they are a bit out of my price range unfortunately... Until now!

There is this site called Society6. In their words, "The artwork of Society6 is created by hundreds of thousands of artists around the world. When you buy a product from Society6, we produce it using only the highest quality materials, and ship it to you on behalf of the artist." Megan has put some prints of her work on this site and they are affordable and while not quite as great as the real thing, they come pretty darn close. I bought an iPhone case (above, obviously...) and a print below (below)!

I'm pretty excited to support Meg's work! I'd encourage you to check it out as well as the work of other artists on Society6. It's good stuff.

Shiny Buttons (Megan's site) on Society6. Go. Now!

Be Patient by Megan Leong.

Maple Frosted Cinnamon Rolls.

I was in charge of bringing cinnamon rolls for a family brunch this past weekend. My mom has an excellent cinnamon roll recipe but I wanted to try something a little bit different this time. I searched all of my favorite blogs and was debating between Joy the Baker's Chai-Spiced Cinnamon Rolls and Pioneer Woman's Maple Frosted Cinnamon Rolls. I'm a big fan of chai, but I wasn't sure if the rest of the world was, so I went with Pioneer Woman's recipe.

The recipe yields "8 servings." I was concerned that that wouldn't be enough for our family get together but I kept reading... 8 cups of flour. 8 cups. That's a lot... That's 1 cup per serving. (I know, I'm real good at math.) That can't be right. Turns out 1 serving is 8 cinnamon rolls. That's 64 cinnamon rolls. (My math skills continue...) That's a lot of cinnamon rolls! I decided to go ahead and go with it so I could give some away.

So I did. I made lots. It pretty much took up my whole Friday night but it was SO worth it. The cinnamon rolls were so good. I'm not saying that because I'm good. I'm saying that because Pioneer Woman is good. I think maple frosting is one of the best things in the world. Drench cinnamon rolls in it and you pretty much have heaven in a pan. I got to love on some people by surprising them with cinnamon rolls too... Cinnamon rolls. Maple frosting. Loving on people. It was pretty great all around.

Pioneer Woman's Maple Frosted Cinnamon Rolls. Do it.

Austin: My Second Favorite City.

(A view of Austin from Mount Bonnell.)

I had a trip planned to go to Austin to visit my brother Joel and friend Jessie and it couldn't have come at a more perfect time. I left two feet of snow on the ground to be greeted by blue skies and 60 degree weather. It was a great weekend... I had a great time with Joel. I had a great time with Jessie and her family. I ate a lot of good foods. I saw some pretty sights. I enjoyed the beautiful weather... But let me show you a few pictures. They are better at telling a story than I can ever tell...

(Lunch on Friday with Joel. Apparently Sandra Bullock owns this place or something.)

(Green macarons. Green is my color of the month (yes, I'm still doing that 

photo project just haven't posted the pictures on here. ))

(The view from 360 Overlook.)

(Made it to Jessie's... check out this cool guy's glasses.)

(Zilker Kite Festival.)

(Ran in to this cute girl there... For some reason I have pictures of two 

of Jessie's kids, but none of her... or Joel... strange.)

(Coffee and reading on a nice day while Joel was in class.)

What a great weekend... And what I great city. I love Austin.

Snow Days. (for some)

(The view from my window at work.)

I don't know if you know this... but we've been getting a lot of snow. Two weeks ago I was talking to a friend at church and I said, "I'm just so ready for spring." And his response was, "Yeah, but I would like one more really good, get stuck at home, snow day." I don't know if he had already seen the weather forecast or if he's a prophet, because that's exactly what we've been getting.

Last Thursday morning it started, and just wouldn't stop. Everyone declared snow days, and offices closed, and highways closed, and hospitals closed... but not JPMorgan. We've gotta help our people with their 401(k)s. (I hope you sense my sarcasm.) So we stayed open. And just so they could make sure we would show up to work instead of call in, they paid for us all to stay in a hotel for two nights - all of our meals and expenses paid. The weekend came, the weather got better, and we all thought we were in the clear. And then it happened again yesterday. The snow is back.

So here I am. Just hanging out at the Overland Park Sheraton. Doing my thing. This is my 4th night here in the last week. Craziness... Did I mention I'm ready for spring?

While I am ready for it to be gone, you can't deny the beauty of this snow... Here are a few pictures I've taken over the last couple of days.

 (The drive from Kansas City to Wichita.)

(The walk in to work.)

I Will Wait.

Confession: I was kind of a hipster when it came to Mumford & Sons. I was late getting on the Mumford & Sons bandwagon, so I decided to just not join it at all because everyone liked them, so I was too cool for them. The truth is... I really like their music. I saw them perform "I Will Wait" on the Grammy's last week and really liked it. And then their album won Album of the Year so I decided to give it a shot. And I'm now officially a fan.

Let me give you a little backstory...

I recently ended a relationship with a guy I really liked because he didn't love Jesus. Loving Jesus is number one on the list, and I thought this guy was going to get there, but things became apparent that he wasn't... so I had to end it. I was angry. Angry at myself for letting it get that far. Angry at God for bringing this guy into my life (when really it was my fault for letting him in my life in the first place.) Angry at God for not providing me a guy who loves Him. Angry at God for his timing... the list goes on. I was angry.

And then I heard their song "I Will Wait." I will wait. Wait: "to stay in place with expectation of." This is what I want and need to be doing. Sure, I need to "wait on the perfect man for me to come along." But more importantly, I need to wait on God. I need to wait for His plan... His timing. I just need to relax and wait. These lyrics are pretty stinkin' powerful and they brought me to this place where I'm trying to be content in the waiting. We are all waiting on something. A job, a baby, a husband, a grandchild, a house... This is a song that brings you comfort and strength in the waiting. At least it did for me... Who would have thought such a gem could be found on popular radio... Not I.



I Will Wait - Mumford & Sons

And I came home
Like a stone
And I fell heavy into your arms
These days of darkness
Which we've known
Will blow away with this new sun

And I'll kneel down
Wait for now
And I'll kneel down
Know my ground

And I will wait, I will wait for you

So break my step
And relent
You forgave and I won't forget
Know what we've seen
And him with less
Now in some way
Shake the excess

But I will wait, I will wait for you

So I'll be bold

As well as strong

And use my head alongside my heart

So tame my flesh

And fix my eyes

That tethered mind free form the lies

But I'll kneel down

Wait for now

I'll kneel down

Know my ground

Raise my hands

Paint my spirit gold

And bow my head

Keep my heart slow

Cause I will wait, I will wait for you