Peel Away

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Andrea

Very busy weekend here at the HQ. On Saturday we tackled the task of putting away the Christmas decorations. I also went through all of my decorations and started putting aside what I don’t want any longer or what I don’t use.

I’m find my decorations tastes are starting to change dramatically. I don’t want cutesy snowmen and reindeer any longer. I like glittery decorations mixed with a bit of mountain lodge thrown in. Lots of pine and lots of sparkly things!

Now I just have to get some sparkly things because I don’t have any! Next year I suspect the holidays will be a bit different in look and feel around here.

Sunday morning after a lovely run and two cups of coffee, I headed to the kitchen to get started on some tasks. I prepped the chicken for dinner, getting some lovely legs chilling in a beer brine. I made stock, finally using the turkey bones from Thanksgiving (they were in the freezer). I got about three quarts of stock made.

Shades of Bourbon

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Andrea

I have used an obscene amount of bourbon this week. I have been cooking with it like crazy. I’m not a liquor kind of gal. It just doesn’t sit right with me but I do love to cook and bake with it!

I made bourbon apple sauce which will be featured soon because it’s too delicious to not discuss. I made some bourbon cookies for the holiday cookie recipe exchange. I made some eggnog custard that I also added bourbon to for extra kick.

See, bourbon crazy!

Even Scott started talking bourbon and all week long had been hinting at bourbon pancakes. ”Well, let’s say you made bourbon pancakes….”, he said during a conversation about recipe development.

“Back to those bourbon pancakes”, during a business development conversation.

So on Sunday morning, I knew that I’d be making some bourbon pancakes for my fella because I can take a hint. After my morning run, I had some yogurt with homemade granola and homemade cranberry-raspberry sauce (Hold the bourbon. This time.). I putzed around online and watched Food TV. Finally when Scott go up, I started prep for Sunday Breakfast.

Warm Hug

Posted on October 17, 2011 by Andrea

I pretty much wanted to do nothing all weekend. Sadly that wasn’t the case but I did get to do nothing on Sunday so that made up for Saturday.

The weather has been less than hospitable this past weekend. It started on Friday with the wind. Ugh. Which continued all weekend long. Sunday morning it was slightly breezy but by the afternoon it was back up to being super windy.

Today, it’s still pretty breezy outside.

Take note that Columbus is a pretty windy and breezy section of Ohio. We have wind. A lot.

I’m not a huge fan of wind which is why I stayed hunkered down and cozied up. Saturday was all work but Sunday was all nothing.

And to celebrate nothing, I made some of my favorite things. Starting off with pancakes!

I did a little experiment with pancakes and added in an egg. Normally I make vegan pancakes (bacon pancakes being the exception of course) because I have found that eggs and dairy are unnecessary for pancakes. But Sunday I decided to toss an egg in there.

Work Day, Rest Day

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Andrea

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Homespun Sunday post! I’ve had so many other things that I’ve wanted to talk about it kind of got pushed aside. Today I’m bringing it back!

Yesterday unfortunately was a work day for both Scott and I. He’s working on a project for someone and I’m working on a webinar that I’m presenting. It’s a webinar geared towards health coaches and it’s about how blogging can help you build your business.

As I was writing out my presentation yesterday, I said to Scott that I literally could talk about this for hours.

Blogging and website development things. As much as I love food and talking about it, blogging would be the next issue that I could go on and on about.

As much as I would have loved to relax yesterday, it wasn’t happening, worked needed to get done. However the upside is that my “office” is mobile and I did at least get to work from the couch yesterday instead of the office proper.

Oatmeal Mask

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Andrea

I’m still washing my face with honey everyday. I am not about to give that up, no way. I have found my new routine, hooray!

While the honey is great, I do like to give my face a little bit of a scrubbing one or twice a week. I wanted to keep things simple and still homemade so I pondered what I could use as a natural scrub.

I found a lot of recipes for an oatmeal scrub and decided to quick put together one for a little pampering.

In my scrub I used:

Old Fashioned Oats
Raw Apple Cider Vinegar
Unsweetened Coconut Milk

I put all of these ingredients into my mini food processor and processed until the oats broke down and the mixture got thick. I tried to keep the portions small but still ended up with a ton of scrub!

The oatmeal for scrubbing purposes, and coconut milk along with the oats for skin softening purposes. The apple cider vinegar is used as a mild astringent and to help tighten and unclog pores.

Hermit

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Andrea

This past week has been ridiculous due to the extreme heatwave that we’ve been having in these parts. The heat index was so intense that even being outside for a minute would cause the body to break out into sweat.

Poor Rocky couldn’t even get walks in (not even early in the AM) because it was just too much for his boxer face to handle. I think he realized it as well. Normally he’ll bug and ask for his walks. This past week all he did was spread out as much as his little tank body would let him to try and keep cool.

It just wasn’t good to be out and about.

Scott and I only made a few trips last week and we tried to keep those as minimal as possible. One was a trip out to Easton so I could procure a new laptop. Which I did and now I’m a happy girl.

Vacation Blues

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Andrea

Monday and another vacation is in the books. I call it a vacation even though it wasn’t really a vacation at all. Our anniversary was last week (July 5th, 13 years!) and we always take the week off to celebrate. However last week we had so many other things going on and so many things to attend to that it wasn’t really a vacation at all.

I had lots of work to get done and focus on and so did Scott. Plus we had a lot of outside events that needed our attention as well. It was with a very sad heart that we said goodbye to our quick vacation yesterday.

I started the day off with a walk around the neighborhood and aside from someone’s aggressive yellow lab chasing me down the road, it was a gorgeous morning. Yesterday was a gorgeous day all around. Beautiful blue skies and very mild heat.

Perfection!

Along with one of my favorite coffees (Jungle Love by Crimson Cup), I made us a big stack of buckwheat and spelt pancakes. I loaded mine up too!

Grilling and Chilling

Posted on June 13, 2011 by Andrea

Hi pretties! How was everyone’s weekend? Was it like mine and it flew by way too quickly? I couldn’t even tell you what we did on Saturday, that’s how fast the day went. Yesterday was full of work, food prep for dinner and the week ahead, and then relaxing on the couch for a bit.

You should know that I love my couch and if you’ve ever had the chance to sit on it then you know why. So squishy!

This is the first installment of Homespun Sunday on Food Embrace! Exciting! For just a brief review, Homespun Sunday is a day during the week where the goal is to eat every meal at home and to have it be something that is made from real foods. No processed foods allowed! Real whole foods! You can read more about it here.

I took the chance to sleep in and while I still got up relatively early, it still qualified as sleeping in. I was a bit hungry when I got up so I had a Sunrise Cookie topped with coconut butter. YUM! I only had one cookie to help tide me over till Sunday breakfast.

Rushing Things

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Andrea

Sunday was a day of rest at the OHC homestead and it was greatly enjoyed! Though we did have chores to do, it wasn’t anything that was super pressing. Just things that needed to get done. The day started off with some much needed sleeping in. I got to sleep till 10am! Whooo!

Last week was a busy one with lots of school work, meetings, and outings with friends. Saturday we headed out to dinner with our friends Emily and Jim, where we dined at Spagio. It’s a lovely restaurant in the Grandview area. Then it was over to a bar to watch a band perform. The band didn’t start until about 10pm and wrapped up after midnight.

Whew! That’s one late night for this girl right here. I was very much ready to be in bed by the time the band finished. They were great (though it was a touch too loud) playing tunes that had a bit of blues and 50s style rock to it.

Birthday Ole!

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Andrea

Hello friends! I hope that you had a fab weekend! I must say that the time change caught me a little off guard this week. I knew it was happening, but losing an hour is sort of throwing my schedule off just a bit so far.

Sunday, I woke up to this lovely message on the fridge. Awww! Sunday was my birthday! And since we celebrate birthdays at OHC for an entire week, all of last week meant that Scott and I were having mini celebrations. It was a nice treat to an otherwise very busy and hectic week.

On Sunday I decided to take what I call Slacker Days. This is different than “Me Days”. Slacker Days are days where I should have worked out but did not because I actually need that extra time for something else.

It happens to us all!

With how crazy March has been so far, how busy last week was, AND with losing an hour, this lady needed some chill time. I was also in need of some major Scotty time. That’s not a euphemism, I mean that I literally needed some downtime spent with my husband who I barely saw last week except for a few minutes before bed time.