Five Favorite Fall Things

It's time for some fabulous fall things that I love.

1. Fall mugs and beverages. This is one of my favorite mugs, it is a pumpkin that my Godmother gave to me when I was in college. I also love hot apple cider and pumpkin coffee in any way, shape or form.

2. Fall cooking. I love roasting vegetables. This includes squash of all kinds.

3. Fall baking. I suppose I could put this in with number 2 but it is really it's own category. I mean, pumpkin muffing, pumpkin cheesecake, apple crisp, apple or pumpkin anything... for example, Apple Dumplings.

4. The clothes. I love wearing sweaters and boots and scarves, etc.

5. Leaves changing. This is one of my all time favorite things. I love when the leaves change colors and the drive to work is so much prettier when the leaves are bright red, orange or yellow. 

http://gardentherapy.ca/the-fall-foliage-of-vermonts-green-mountains/

What are your favorite things about fall?

Is Life Too Busy?

One thing that I have been learning is to cherish the little moments. With this year being so busy, school is starting, two grad classes, a new baby in the family, balancing the hubs new job, small group, etc... the list keeps going. I have often wondered if I am too busy lately. I know I have a lot going on but I feel like I don't know how else to live.

These little moments I have found include simple things like my most recent coffee discovery, Gevalia Chocolate Mocha. This make my morning better. Right now I am sitting on the couch, in a nice cool apartment because the windows have been open all night, with a cup of coffee in hand, writing this blog. To me, there is nothing really better.

I also made my own coffee creamer. It is SO simple I can't believe I've never done it before. All you do is take I can of sweetened condensed milk (14 oz.) and 1 3/4 cup of milk or cream (I used whatever I had in the fridge). You can also add any flavorings you like (I used almond extract and cinnamon). Then, you shake it up and store it in your fridge.

Last night, I made quiche for the first time. I cheated and bought a store bought crust but I figured its okay. I've done so much on my own this week, including homemade tomato soup (post and recipe coming soon). It was so easy to do, I found a recipe online for a basic quiche and added my own ingredients. I can't believe there are only 3 or 4 eggs in the whole thing! I added cooked bacon, cheese and broccoli. It was so good. The hubs ate 2 pieces.

I have found a way to balance it all and perhaps find the time to recharge by cooking and enjoying coffee. How do you find a break in the rush of life?

Wine In the Woods

First of all... GENIUS event! Whoever thought to have an entire park full of about 30 wineries offering wine tastings and food vendors along with live music is simply genius. It is a great idea.

This event was a lot of fun. We went with our small group and some of their friends. We all brought blankets, chairs and food to share. It was a great time to talk and a great time tasting wine. I want to highlight some of my favorites. The best part? All of the wineries are in Maryland! That means local!


Boordy
First of my favorites, which one of our friends said we HAD to try. Boy was she right. This literally tastes like juice. Dangerous but would be so good on a hot summer day.

 

Here's the description from the website:

The pure juices of strawberries and raspberries harmonize to produce a wine with racy fruit flavors and a sweet/tart finish.

Other notables from Boordy Vineyards: Tango Peach and White Sangria










Legends Vineyards
Our next favorite was Legends Vineyards. We tried almost their whole list and pretty much liked everything we tried. I'll name our 4 favorites.

1. Vidal Blanc
2. Sunset Blush
3. Midnight Red
4. Peach          

The peach wine was SO good and it was one of my favorites. It was a tad too sweet for the hubs. We almost bought a bottle but, we refrained and there were only two bottles of it left, so I'm pretty sure that by the time we would have decided to buy or not buy, it would have been gone. Hopefully we can find this at our favorite wine store though.








Detour Winery

Next up is Detour Winery. These wines were some of the hubs favorites I think.
1. Bonfire
2. Meadow Breeze


Meadow Breeze won my vote from here. I could see myself sipping on this in the evening. Bonfire had some cinnamon in it. It seemed like it would be best for the fall or winter.




Harford Vineyard and Winery

There was one wine from here that we liked. It was the 2010 Merlot. This had flavors of plum and black cherries. I liked it and would probably drink this in the fall and winter. I am not a big red wine person and the hubs liked this more, but I enjoyed and could appreciate the flavors here.












Big Cork

I really liked their Traminette. The description says" Semi-dry wine from the Taminette grape, a relative of the famous German grape Gewurztraminer. Enjoy the bright aromatics and spicy, fruity flavors suggestive of pineapple and melon."






Another fun part of this event was that you were able to buy bottles of wine and sit and sip while talking with friends, having a picnic, and listening to music. Some of the friends we were with bought a bottle of Solomons Island Winery's Watermelon White Merlot. This was delicious. This wine was fruity and tasted just like watermelon. This wine also only has about half the regular alcohol content of regular wine (6.5%) which means that you can drink more?


Overall, I would go back to this event and hopefully try all of the 30 wineries that are there. Hopefully next year we have better weather and are able to stay longer. Anyone want to join next year?

What's Cooking?

Well the other night I made some Turkey Burger Meatloaf. I wanted to make it last week, but inevitably that didn't happen, as usually something I plan on gets left off the menu. So,  dinner was turkey meat loaf and sweet potato wedges.

I LOVE sweet potatoes. Here's what you do:

• quarter 2-3 sweet potatoes (usually 3 medium is enough for the two of us with left overs)
• put them on a LINED (I use my silpat but tin foil is good too) baking sheet (make sure there is a rim, the hubs tried this once without and I was cleaning up olive oil from inside my oven for weeks)
• coat lightly with olive oil
• sprinkle with salt and pepper
• toss in a pre-heated 350 oven for about 45 minutes (if you up it to 400 or 425 it will take 20-30 minutes)

Enjoy when they come out! This is by far one of my favorite ways to eat sweet potatoes. I don't peel them either. I don't mind the skins.

For the turkey meatloaf, I got the recipe from here. I didn't follow the recipe exactly. I left out the milk and used half of a large fresh onion, rather than dehydrated minced onion. It came out pretty good, although I ended up baking it for almost 1 hr 15 minutes to make sure the middle was done, not just the hour that the recipe says.

There was a lot of liquid around the meatloaf. I looked like it shrunk in the pan. But it tasted pretty good. Next time I would not put as much brown sugar in the ketchup on top. Maybe I would even just use ketchup. It was TOO sweet for me. 

Incredibly Blessed

This past Friday we had what our church is calling 3rd Friday (creative as it is the third Friday of every month). What 3rd Friday is, is a get together of the young adults at church. We socialize, play some trivia-esque games, worship together and discuss a topic. Lately, we've been going through the book of Acts. It has been wonderful.

This past 3rd Friday I walked in and realized a few things:

1. I have made friends and am building relationships (no longer do I feel totally out of place with these people)
2. People there genuinely care about us
3. We have been blessed with an amazing church family
4. God has put us right where we need to be right now
5. There are people who are more of an encouragement to me than they will ever know

You see, this past week has been incredibly taxing. Really, these past few weeks and months have been taxing. I have been begging and praying that God will provide the hubs with a full time job he loves. It has not happened and I have been very broken lately. I think that God realized how incredibly broken I have felt lately.

This past week I was able to meet up with a young woman from church and have coffee. It really was just what I needed. I feel that sometimes it has been difficult to find other young, newly married, not ready for kids yet, couples. I had coffee with a woman who has been married about a year, and has been having a difficult time finding friends as well. Our God is SO good. He knew what I needed.

Also, Friday night, Bradley was handed an envelope. He told me to open it and read the note. I was expecting just some words of encouragement. But, God had something else in store. In the card was incredible encouragement. There was not only word of encouragement, which was just what I needed to hear, but a gift card for us to go out to dinner. Somehow, God knew that this gift card would be such an encouragement. This meant that someone saw that the hubs and I needed to do something special for us.

Life has been so hectic lately that even date night can be difficult some weeks. It can be hard to stop life from     getting in the way of our marriage. If we are not careful, our marriage will suffer. I am so thankful for this gift that I almost started crying. Sometimes, it doesn't take much to bless others.

This got me thinking. How can I bless someone? What can I do to be just a small bit of encouragement? There is so much to be thankful for. God is good!