SNOW!

I hear what you're saying. You're all like, "Abby. It's March. You're like three weeks late on this snowpocalypse thing." I hear ya. Life happens. I still really really love snow! It's true. Despite the fact that on the day of this great snowpocalypse, I got stuck in my car on the highway for four and a half hours trying to get home ON MY BIRTHDAY and it was horrible. Snow and I made up quickly. It's just so pretty!

I am definitely one of those weirdos who legitimately loves the winter. I love the calm and the peace and the beauty of a fresh snow. The world seems to move a little bit slower when it snows, and it's really nice.

Before the great snowpocalypse, during our first snow of the season, B and I went outside for an adventure. Duke Forest is seriously so beautiful all the time, but blanketed in a fresh powdery blanket? Bliss. Also my car may have almost spun out on the way to get those pictures. It's fine.

ALSO please notice the sequence where B is being so nice with the snow and then the next picture where you see smudgy mascara and a mean mug. That punk hit me in the face with a snowball. Also not pictured: Abby totally biting it trying to climb up a snowy hill. Face first. In the snow. It was awesome.

That has been kind of the theme of life lately. Totalling wiping out on your face and having the ability to brush it off and keep going. Eventually you will both laugh, and it'll be awesome.

It's getting frosty outside again, and B and a friend and I are headed out to a fancy dinner at Lantern thanks to a raffle! No other way I want to warm up and pray for spring than with some fancy Asian food. Yes.

Love from this side of the world!

Abby

good things // 1

A new year, a new perspective on good things. This past weekend was productive in the best kind of way! I woke up, fully rested for the first time in ages, and decided to make banana bread. It's one of my few "family recipes" so I'm a little reluctant to share, but maybe I will someday!

B and I then spent all morning/early afternoon addressing our save the dates, which came in the mail last week! It wasn't very glamorous, but it was good time together. We also spent Saturday evening at a marriage prep seminar at our church! #gomarriage

Some good things I've been loving this week:

I ran across this pin this week - an awesome reminder.

We recently registered for a juicer, and since then I feel like I have been seeing juicing articles all over the blogosphere! This one is interesting. Anybody want to buy me that juicer early to kickstart my wedding diet? :)

Still on the search for the perfect veil, and swooning over the veils at Twigs & Honey

I'm reading a chronological Bible reading plan right now and am about halfway through Genesis (I think I may be behind), and some crazy stuff goes on in there, y'all. It's so interesting to think that Sarah and Abraham were considered righteous when you look at all of the ways they were so sinful.

Getting excited for this conference this weekend! Durham friends, who's going with me?!

Stay warm and safe out there, everyone! New recipe coming tomorrow! :)

xox.

Abby

friend weekend.

Don't you love it when friends come to visit?

This weekend was pretty much the best friend weekend ever. It involved staying up way too late on Pinterest, wedding dress shopping, cupcake eating, venue exploring, brunch munching, and so much laughter. I was completely overjoyed when Jordan told me she wanted to come in for a weekend. Living so far away from friends is a sacrifice I gladly made to be with this wonderful man, but it is so wonderful to see them when they can come! I felt like we got so much accomplished this weekend on things I really needed to jump on, probably because they were just so much better to do with a friend. 

Love you to pieces, JR! 

(Also I live in a pretty cool city, I've decided. It is just gorgeous in the fall)

xoxo. Abby

a speckled hat!

Whenever I walk into a yarn store, it's a dangerous thing. Especially when the cold weather is finally maybe sort of starting to show up and I have about a million projects stored in my Ravelry favorites that I want to tackle so bad. This hat is the product of my most recent trip and I am so happy with how it turned out!

I generally used this pattern, although my yarn wasn't quite at worsted weight, so I increased my cast on to 96 stitches instead of 72 to make the gauge right. Even so, it is not quite as slouchy as the pattern, but that is alright with me. The delicate speckles are super cute and the yarn is very soft, so I call this pattern a success! It is definitely a great launching point for a bunch of other projects I'm working on this fall!

Some other modifications I made (in case you were wondering):

-Again, because I wasn't using worsted weight yarn, I also increased the total rows to make the hat big enough for my head. I worked the color chart three times instead of just two.

-With the increase in stitches, my decreasing pattern wasn't exactly the same as the one listed in the pattern. Honestly, I don't think this made a ginormous difference so if you find yourself in the same shoes, don't stress too much about it.

What are you excited to be making this fall? :)

xoxo,

Abby

august.

A few snapshots from my life recently. 

1/2: I got an iPad case! It is so gorgeous and you can find the brand here. 

3: Brandon came back from a week-long trip to Mexico with beautiful presents.

4: Craigslist adventures continue with this 1970's Goodform chair. Can't wait to keep slowly adding to our space!

5: A sweet man at my local Kroger was going around handing flowers out to people waiting to check out. Totally made my day. 

So many fun adventures for the next month and a half are in the works! One (maybe two?) trips to Nashville, settling in adventures, friend adventures, and possibly puppy adventures?? Can't handle all this goodness and can't wait to share it all as it unfolds.

Here's to what's ahead,

Abby

the first week!

Oh man, you guys.

So I finished my first week of work this week. And generally right now, life is a little bit more than INSANE. I find myself getting stressed about it a LOT, and I so look forward to the days that I can come home to an apartment complex where they actually give their residents the actual keys to their apartment (no jokes, this happened to me Friday night at 11 PM when I was trying to move all my stuff in), drive a car to work with a decent gas mileage, and I am actually competent enough at my job to be able to fill out alllllll the paperwork. And answer the phone correctly. This skill is harder than you think.

In the meantime though, here's a list of things I'm learning these days:

Apple Maps is not my favorite navigation map of all time. I had to use it a bunch this week to get to different contract sites and I got lost no less than three times. Google Maps is in the testing queue on my phone.

There is a big difference between leaving at 7 AM and leaving at 7:20 AM for the traffic on I-40. As in, leaving twenty minutes later may actually make your commute take 40 more minutes. If you choose the second, there is a real good chance you will be late.

9:30 PM is now an acceptable bedtime (hellooooooo being old).

Brandon is very good in a crisis/when I am way too tired to cook food post-work training. Meaning he is very good at ordering pizza. I will keep him around.

I love my friends.

If you ever need an I-9 form filled out for your future place of employment or need a reference for the tax exemption you should file on your W-2's, I am officially your girl.

If I could have everything in Zooey Deschanel's closet I would have the most wonderful and office appropriate wardrobe ever. I also may be taking fashion tips from the secretaries on Mad Men (Jon Hamm what WHAT).

There are SO many fun things to do in this area and I am so excited to have the sanity to plan trips to do them all.

Jesus is good. I'm learning that a little more every day.


Hope you are having a wonderful weekend, friends.

Love,

Your very sleepy/happy/dopey/grumpy wow why am I a herd of dwarves blogger.

broiled green figs + goat cheese and honey

This week, and every week since he has started work, Brandon has been working a lot of nights, leaving me to fend for dinners for myself. Cooking dinners for just one person can be kind of awkward the way that most recipes are portioned, and so I have started getting creative. I also now live less than ten minutes away from a Trader Joe's, which makes me way more happy than I can even describe, and the marriage of these two circumstances creates this wonderful and simple dessert.

Green figs are slightly less sweet than their more common, black fig brothers, but broiling them brings out a lot of their natural sweetness! The crumbly goat cheese adds a wonderful tart counterpart to the honey. It's magic on a plate, people. And it takes about 10 minutes to put together, so it makes a simple and elegant dessert for more complex dishes or, like me, a dinner that needs a little luxury.

Green Figs, Goat Cheese and Honey

Serves one/ Total time: 10 minutes

6 green figs, halved
2 oz. crumbled goat cheese
2 tbsp. orange blossom honey*

Preheat your oven's broiler to high and adjust the oven rack to its highest notch. On a baking sheet, layout fig halves and crumble your goat cheese on top. (You can do this on aluminum foil for easy clean up.) Place the baking sheet on the top rack and broil until figs are softened and goat cheese has lightly browned and slightly melted, about 5 minutes. Immediately remove from oven and transfer to a plate. Drizzle with honey and serve while warm.

*Orange blossom honey may be substituted for clover honey, but I love the stronger flavor of the orange blossom in this recipe.

You won't regret it!

Happy dining,

Abby

currently...

Hanging out...in Brandon's apartment, contemplating what to do with my last week of freedom while he is at work. It's really crazy/overwhelming/wonderful to think about all the ways that my life has changed in the past ten days, and how much it will change in the next ten!

Listening to...old school Ingrid Michaelson. That girl never gets old and always puts me in a good mood.

Thinking about...the baked catfish (see above) that I made for dinner a few nights ago. It came out so crispy, and went perfect with the black bean and tomato quinoa salad I made the other night. Recipe planning has all of a sudden become really fun :)

Grateful for...the way that things are coming together at just the right time. I closed on an apartment with my new roommate on Saturday morning, and everything about it is wonderful. It's a good price, a good location, a good size for two girls. Later that afternoon at Target I was looking at the Paula Deen discounted cookware (too soon?) when I came across this whole line of knives that came in the most beautiful, bright colors! Of course I scooped them up right away and Brandon even bought me a santoku knife to round it out (and it is now my new favorite knife of all time).

Looking forward to...continuing to do some work for ABAN, dreaming and Craigslisting for my new apartment constantly, and going out for Indian food tonight!

Happy Monday! xoxo. Abby

DINING IN DURHAM: KALE CHIPS

One of those fun Pinterest recipes that I kept seeing over and over again was kale chips! I had heard mixed reviews about kale as a vegetable, being known for being rather bitter, but I am definitely into trying new things this summer, and always appreciate ways to get more vegetables into my diet.

I used this tutorial generally but substituted some of the spices! Instead of just garlic powder, I used a combination of garlic and Adobo powder, which has some other spices in it as well that are really delicious.

Ingredients:
1 head of kale
1 tbsp Adobo powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Tear or cut up your kale into large bite-sized pieces, cutting away from the stems. Make sure that your kale is very dry so that it will crisp. In a large Ziplock bag, add the olive oil and your spices. Next add the kale and "smoosh" the kale around in the bag to make sure that every piece is evenly coated. On a cookie sheet lay out your pieces of kale so that none of the pieces are touching (I had to use two sheets). Bake at 300 degrees for 30 minutes and enjoy!

Overall, I liked the flavor of the chips and they came out really crispy! Next time I think I will cut the pieces a little bit smaller to avoid the stems, which are particularly bitter. I also didn't have parchment paper on hand but greased the cookie sheet with non-stick spray, and the flavor got into the chips a tiny bit. So I would recommend the parchment paper for sure.

What are some of your healthy go-to snacks? Have you ever made kale chips before?

Happy weekend, I'm off to spend some time at the gym!

xoxo. Abby