It’s Finally Time!!

After 3 years of living in this house, we are finally getting around to updating the Guest Bathroom. And I, for one, could not be giddier!! When we first moved into the house, we had a lot of more urgent projects that required our attention. Like fixing the mint green/pale pink/nasty yellow kitchen. Or updating our Master Bath, since that’s the one we use and therefore the most important. Literally every other room in our house has gotten a face lift or at least some heavy makeup. And now it’s finally Bathy’s turn.

We have the vanity (ordered off of eBay) waiting in the living room.
We have the tile picked out (Lowe’s always comes through for us on tile).
We know what color we are going to paint (and it won’t be brown!! I’m getting braver!)

Matt just finished his second round of P90X (and is looking mighty fine if I do say so myself!) and has decided to take a break for the duration of the remodel. With my help and the aid of some of our friends, we are hoping this project won’t take longer than 2 months. We’ll see… the Master Bath took us almost 7 months, but it was a CRAZY time for us. Right after that remodel started, Matt started traveling to CA for work for weeks at a time, we got engaged so I went into wedding planner mode, and life got generally hectic. Things are currently calm (knock on wood). Plus, now we have one bathroom under our belt, and that knowledge will help us to complete this guy faster.

Demo (my favorite!) begins tonight and I’ll post updates as I can. Send us some good remodel vibes!

My First Experience at Last Chance

My co-worker Jen convinced me to go on a little lunch excursion with her on Friday to Nordstrom’s Last Chance Store. For anyone who hasn’t heard of the store, it’s basically a dumping ground for designer shoes, bags, clothes and accessories that either didn’t sell at the regular Nordstrom or Nordstrom Rack, or that have some light (or in some cases, not so light) damage done to them.

The store was massive in size, and had a lot of shoppers for a Friday afternoon. And apparently it can get a tad crazy there when good deals are at stake. Not 2 minutes after walking in the door, Jen and I were browsing purses in a 35% off bin. It was crazy to see $2000 purses “marked down” to $500 in the mix. But as we were browsing, a security guard came up and asked us to stand back 5 feet and stay put while then placed some more purses into the bins. There were maybe another dozen ladies in the area who had to do the same, which I thought was weird. Jen walked around the perimeter as they were adding bags and they literally YELLED at her to back off! The lady who was putting purses in told her if she “tried that again” they would kick her out! Then the security guard (who was really not much bigger than me – I could have taken him :)) gave the word and people were allowed to continue shopping. It was really funny and awkward at the same time – nobody rushed in or started fighting over the new merchandise. I just don’t get it. Obviously they have had issues with fights in the past over a good bag, which is why these crazy regulations are in place. But in all seriousness, I would LOVE to see two upper-middle-class ladies duke it out for a $400 Valentino :)

The shoe selection was huge there, but I was really not very impressed with the deals overall. A lot of the shoes had obviously been worn heavily and then returned (who does that?!), but the prices still ranged from moderate to ridiculous. A lot of our conversations went like this:

Jen: “Ooooh! Those are nice shoes! (Insert brand name I’ve never heard of)!”
Me: “Yeah, but they’re still $100”
Jen: “But they used to be $500!”
Me: “You really can’t use that kind of logic on a girl who shops at Target.”

Don’t get me wrong, I like having nice things. I just don’t want to pay a ton of money for used items just because some famous designer stamped his name on them. I could get 100 PAIRS OF OLD NAVY FLIP FLOPS for that price!!

In the end, I did end up buying a nice pair of Cole Haan’s – patent black with just a slight platform and an open toe. Perfect for summer – and I’ve been looking for a replacement to my Aldo’s for some time now. So I was a happy camper :) Jen was very successful too, and walked away with 2 pairs of shoes and a cute bag. We had a fun time, but I think I can safely say that that will be my first and last trip to that store. For now I’ll stick with my Banana Republic clearance rack and avoiding cat fights!

So Comfy!! With Nike Air Technology - thanks Cole Haan!

BBQ Chicken Sandwiches

Originally, these were supposed to be BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches. But yesterday afternoon when I went out to the freezer to grab the pork (hehe… that sounds dirty…), I remembered that we ate the last of it a few weeks ago. Since I had already been to the store once that day, I decided to improvise and just make BBQ chicken sandwiches.

I have developed a little love affair with my crock pot, and I love the days where I work from home or get home early so I can make things in it. It’s just so easy and requires very little maintenance during the cooking process. And you can make some pretty “fancy” stuff in there. I know that you can start a meal in the morning and let it go all day on low, but: 1) I don’t have that much mental capacity in the morning to be prepping a meal and 2) I have horrific, unjustified panic attacks thinking about the house burning down while I’m at work and Jordan being trapped in the flames. No thanks. Anywho…

Here is what I threw in there:

- 3 chicken breasts (about 1 pound)
- ½ Bottle of Bill Johnson’s Original BBQ Sauce
- 1 Tbsp. Onion Powder
- 2 Tbsp. Brown Sugar

That’s it, then just set it on high to start cooking. About half way through, I cut the breasts in half to make sure they were cooking all the way through. 3 hours in, I shredded the chicken with two forks and lowered the heat setting. After hour 4, we piled some of the goodies onto a Kaiser roll and enjoyed! We served it with potato salad (homemade by Matt’s mom & oh so yummy) and some chips for color – ha!

If I were to do this recipe again (which I think I will), the only think I would change is maybe putting some beer into the mixture. Maybe only 1/3 cup or so, just enough to give a good flavor after it cooks out. The BBQ sauce and the brown sugar made it pretty sweet, so it would be nice to have a balance. Enjoy!

Glamour Shot up Close

I Like To Take Glamour Shots of Desserts

Because they look so darn good!!

Cupcakes from my birthday - a' la my mom and Tiffani:

My New Camera Rocks

This new Nikon has some amazing features and I am loving the time I spend learning and playing with it. Just a few of the cool things that I have been able to do:

Give photos an extra POP of Color!

I snapped this picture of Jordan playing in the yard (with her toy from Brittany, which she LOVES!):


Then I played with the color settings on the camera to enhance the green in the picture:


See?! It looks like we have a frickin awesome lawn!! All through camera magic! (P.S. how cute is that dog?!)

Another cool feature is the "Sports" setting on the camera. It stills objects in motion to give the clearest action shots I have ever seen. Take for example:

A picture that was taken on a regular camera last year of Jody and Kim jumping on the bed - cool, but blurry:


NOW, check out what my bad boy did this past weekend with the same subjects:


Hooray for fun new toys!

Bachelorette Party!

We partied hearty last weekend to celebrate the upcoming (very soon!!) nuptials of Jody and Alex. Here's how the weekend went down:

Friday night after work, Jody, Claudia, Kim, Cordova, Julia and I met up at the new Talking Stick Resort & Casino in Scottsdale. Our room was awesome, with a great view of the pool and the desert in the background. We ordered out a pizza, salad and some wings from Oregano's and enjoyed our dinner in the hotel room with fancy silverware and napkins. Kim did a trial run on Jody's hair for the wedding while we cracked up to The Sweetest Thing and the Penis Song. It was a pretty casual night, which was exactly what we needed after a long day at work.

Our Fabulous Hotel

Saturday morning, we headed down to the pool to get some sun. We couldn't have asked for better weather - temperatures in the 90's with a light breeze occasionally passing through. Aside from some little boys trying to flirt with Jody by splashing and playing WAY too closely to us, it was a nice way to start the morning. Around noon, we headed upstairs to the spa to get manicures. The nice thing about spas is that you're allowed to use their facilities all day if you're receiving a treatment. So we split off into twos - Claudia and Jody got their nails done while Kim and I relaxed in the whirlpool, then we switched. (Side note: before we settled on the whirlpool, Kim and I decided to try out the steam room at the spa. We literally didn't last a minute - the humidity was too much for our Arizona lungs and we had to duck out of there while another guest laughed us on.)

After our nails were done, we headed out for lunch at Pita Jungle. The food was good, but the gelato next door was even better! We must have driven the employees crazy with how many samples we each had before settling on our respective flavors. It's just so much harder at a gelato shop versus and ice cream shop because everything tastes JUST LIKE what the tag says! Peanut Butter ice cream at Cold Stone may taste like ice cream with just a hint of buttery flavor, but Peanut Butter ice cream at Gelato Spot tastes like you just crammed a spoonful of Skippy in your mouth.

After our lunch break, it was back to the pool to relax and read magazines and further enjoy the good weather. Shannon and Tom even came out for a bit to try to build a base tan before their trip to Cabo. Then it was back up to the spa to get ready for the night. Since there are 4 showers at the spa, as well as a huge, mirrored sink area, it was easy for all of us to get ready at once versus fighting over the small bathroom space in our room. The showers there were really cool, too - they had an open-air feeling and windows that looked out over the green golf course. Maybe in our next house, I will have Matt build me a bathroom that opens up to the yard :)

Getting Ready

Once we were all primped and ready to roll, a few more girls showed up at the hotel to pre-party with us. Jody opened her gifts, which included a hilarious "Panty Line" that represented via underpants the various stages of marriage she and Alex will go through. There were funny little poems that went along with each stage and had us all cracking up. Since our dinner reservation wasn't until a little later, we headed over to Culinary Dropout for drinks. Jody started in on her list of embarrassing bridal tasks that we assigned her, which she continued throughout the night.

Dinner was at Olive & Ivy - my first time to that restaurant. The food and the sangria did not disappoint, and we had a good time with even more girls who showed up for the festivities. After dinner, it was over to Ernie's for some good-time karaoke! I had never been to Ernie's, but had heard from some of my co-workers that it was a fun dive bar with cheap drinks and a guaranteed good time for all. It definitely lived up to its word - we snagged a both towards the karaoke stage and enjoyed the various people entertaining us. Some were actually really good singers (some chick did a rendition of Alicia Keys' "If I Ain't Got You" - some guy sang a spot-on Elton John tune), but most were like us and just there to goof around. Jody and Kim rocked the mic with Michael Jackson's "The Way You Make Me Feel," then Claudia and Jody rapped their way through Salt N Pepa's "Shoop" to please the crowd.

After we'd had enough for the night, we headed back over to our hotel to crash. The next morning, we packed our bags, checked out, and headed over to Chompie's for a nice brunch. The omelets were fantastic, and it was a great way to end a great weekend. Next step in the wedding fun is the actual wedding itself!! We can't wait!

Cake Pops!

For Jody's wedding shower, I decided to make these adorable Cake Pops! that a girl at work introduced me to. You can find the directions on how to make them here, but I'll just share some of the tips and tricks I learned along the way to make it easier.

First of all, the recipe calls for a whole can of icing. This makes the consistency much too sticky and difficult to work with - it's more like a dough at that point when you want a moist, cakey texture. So half a can of icing turned out to be the perfect amount.

I think some people recommend using a cake baller (like a mini ice cream scoop), but I found that it was easier if Matt and I just hand-rolled the cake mixture into the sizes we wanted.

Then it got even trickier - we had cooled the cake balls over night, and in the morning we started the process of putting them on sticks and priming them for dunking in the chocolate. Our mistake was taking out the whole pan of cake balls and trying to get them all on sticks at once. That gave them time to thaw out, which led to balls crumbling apart in the hot chocolate mixture! But then again, it's not a true Pamela Baking Day if we don't have at least one disaster/meltdown. Poor Matt - he puts up with me so well :) So to solve this problem, we found that it was easier to leave the balls in the freezer and just pull them out 2 at a time to work with. That was fine, since you have to re-heat the chocolate after every 2 dunks anyways to keep it from hardening in the glass. Very Cold Balls + Very Hot Chocolate = Success

That's another good trick - using a tall glass to melt your chocolate in, rather than a bowl. On our first trial of making the Cake Pops, we used the bowl method and found it hard to swirl the Pops around to get full chocolate coverage. A lot of them fell apart or had bare sides and it did not look as pretty. By dunking the Pops straight down in a tall glass of chocolate, you get full, smooth coverage without all of the hassle.

And yet another tip - splurge for the good chocolate!! We tried just using the chocolate chip morsels that you can buy at the grocery store, but they didn't look or taste as good. So I went to a cake specialty store and bought baker's chips (someone told me you can also find them at Michael's). They had a lot of different colors to choose from - I went with purple to fit the theme of the party, and also added in some white for funsies. I bought the cute little heart sprinkles there too - I think I spent way more than I should have at that cake shop, but I was in baker's heaven!

Jordan helping out

Matt also made me this nifty Cake Pop Holder by spacing holes in a slab of styrofoam about 2 inches apart. That way, I could cool the Pops in an upright position to avoid flat sides during cooling. Plus, it looked really adorable when all of the Pops were on there - like a little field of cake :)

When I saw that they were selling Cake Pops at Starbucks for $2 a piece, I thought it was such a rip-off. But after spending a day trying to make 100 of these treats, I decided that $2 each is a more than fair price - ha!! The end result was great, though, and everybody loved the look and taste of the Pops! I will definitely be making them again, but I think it will be a special-occasion-only treat :)