chocolate peanut butter oatmeal bars

with walnuts on top because i don't have peanuts! i was in a great mood 2 days ago because i finished grading my midterms, the results of which were really good! so i baked these for my fellow math teachers who had to proctor exams yesterday. they were very aesthetically pleasing, which is new for me, AND tasty. very tasty. too tasty. i saved 5 for me at home. shhhh... secret.

serging for the first time!!

i serged for the first time this sunday!! i'd been dreading this moment, to be honest, as the serger requires threading 4 spools! and using a cutting knife, eek! it was frustrating for sure. it didn't make sense how the cutting knife works. dad saved the day by reading the manual for me and informing me that trying to shove the material into the knife was improper and that sergio would feed the material to the knife for me. right. so that's why i kept jamming up the machine. oops. here's the finished result!

this is the inside of a pair of designer jeans that i got in a major sale that were far too long. i had been wearing them with 3.5 to 4 inch heels, but they still mopped the floor. thus, i rarely wore these jeans. however, my last pair of jeans got a massive hole in the buttocks, and although mom repaired them for me, reality set in and i realized i needed to make these ones more wearable. here's the outside! these are the 1st pair that i've hemmed since doing lori's for her. not bad, right? i think i have a backup career if i ever get tired of teaching, hehe

settling into philly

well, bunks has settled in to his new abode in philly. hehe. he's figured out the sound of the fridge, and tries to sneak in the veggie drawer when my back is turned!

he nests in the hay basket i got for his bday in august rather than chew it. and here's a pic of him grooming in the sun during my snow day last week!

merry christmas to me!

so mom has benefited from 3 pairs of pj pants already (this year's one will be posted once i load the pics off dad's camera), jimmy has gotten a pair of shorts, and his gf got shorts last year too, so whew, my turn came next! the flannel was scored during joann fabric's black friday crazy sale ($1.29/yd!!!) and features jungle exploring monkeys with palm trees, toucans, geckos, tropical snakes, and the word "explorer" all over! admittedly, i had already worn the pants for a couple days before i snapped a pic of it and threw it in the wash.

ignore the mushy look. hehe. i didn't feel like sewing buttonholes, so i made a faux drawstring.of course, when the elastic was a bit loose, there was no drawstring to help keep up the pants, so i had to unstitch the waistband and shorten the elastic! sigh. laziness didn't pay off this time. it rarely does i suppose. merry christmas to me!

mei-tai numbahhh 2!

my oldest friend in weston had her baby shower today. we were in the same 1st grade class and she was my first friend in town! danielle is a fantastic sewing enthusiast as well, so i figured i'd leave the baby clothes sewing to her, and made her my 2nd mei-tai! the inside is made of a khaki flannel that has turtles and hippos, which is super soft and cute. mom's christmas gift was made of the same flannel (pics to come later) and i made sure to save enough for the mei-tai, since blue is danielle's favorite color!

the meitai and pocket flaps aren't crooked, i swear. unfortunately i didn't adjust it before i snapped the pic. since baby showers are scenes of majorly cute decorations, clearly my forte, i had to step up my game. i used the last of my 1960's sparkly light blue ribbon (of course! and danielle is having a boy!!) which is tarnish-resistant, and included a card trimmed with pinking shears! on the card, i sewed cutouts of a turtle and a hippo. (sewing on paper feels so wrong but is so so cool!) i'll be doing it again for sure! at the baby shower, we all were told to pick a rubber duck and i won the prize! the barefoot contessa's "how easy is that?" cookbook! how perfect, considering i'm awful at cooking. maybe i'll be featuring pics soon of something i've cooked... maybe... i'm sure danielle will have birthed her baby before then! good luck, oldest buddy!

happy bday david p!

ah yes, a post from a million years ago. dec 11 to be exact. david p (we have 2 david's in our office and both are over 6 feet tall!) is a fellow teacher in my math dept and his bday is the day before jimmikins'! since emily's pumpkin chiffon cupcakes were oh so tasty, i wanted to go the chiffon cupcake route again for david. i had 2 gallons of oj and 2 oranges, so i made him orange chiffon cupcakes! chiffon cake has to be inverted while cooling so that it doesn't shrink down. i was lazy and didn't invert emily's cupcakes and they became teeny, so for david's, bottoms up!

i had a lot of work to do that night, and didn't feel like making cream cheese frosting again, so i made a quick orange icing to drizzle on top. naturally the drizzle drizzled all over the place, so his cupcakes were hideous (i'm noticing a hideous theme for all my baked goods) but tasty. happy birthday david!

from the ghost of christmas future

so of course i ran out of time to make the broski's christmas present.

i'm almost done with the first!