wish us luck at the tables!

wil is in a meat fabrication and identification class right now (think butchering…from a little shrimp, all the way to a cow), and while i know he’s enjoying it, they aren’t cooking as much, so he’s not coming home with free meals and millions of ideas at this point.

the last few days have been quite eventful with some expected and unexpected guests…and that’s led to some quick meals out on the town. although my mom was unfortunately stranded in portland after trying to fly home into freezing fog, we got an impromptu sunday morning with my mom and dad. after church we unknowingly landed at a homey diner that had a surprisingly healthy and unique menu. that evening, we were lucky enough to get to go to a blazers game with the cavaliers in town, with laura/stefan. we (or maybe just me) were excited to see lebron james and shaq in person.

we couldn’t pass up the late night opportunity of finally experiencing voodoo doughnuts after the game, and for me, it was definitely great. i’m not a big doughnut person most of the time, but my offensively named treat with chocolate, oreos and peanut butter was fantastic, with a nice yeasty dough that balanced all the super sweet toppings.

after stefan had to head north for another fishing trip, wil entertained us two girls, with sandwich carts, walks around downtown, wings, and then to the movies to see the chick flick ‘leap year’. i’m not sure what’s on our plate for today, but i’m enjoying vegging in my pj’s.

we did end up buying a calendar (woo! it’s the little things in life), so maybe we’ll get ourselves back on schedule and in the kitchen with camera in hand. we’re hoping for some progress on our site redesign…we’ve (ok, i’ve) been dragging our feet writing a bio and typing up all the info our ‘graphic designer’ and developer needs- sorry michael!

thursday nights are always a good night….we have a slightly sickening amount of tv shows that air this night. too many in fact, that we have to record one, and watch another online in addition to what’s live. last night, we upped the ante, and joined our new friends (*clarify: wil’s school friends, that are by default now mine…i always like how that works in my favor.) to watch the nbc comedy line up together. nbc + laughing + friends = win.

plus, it was a good excuse to have a ‘seasonal’ party…hearty snacks, autumn sweets, and holiday beer.

the sweets were my responsibilty, and who knows why, but i decided to tackle cupcakes. cupcakes, are not one of my strong points. more often than not, one small thing never quite turns out right. sometimes the texture is off, but usually instead of mounding nicely, they sink, and live up to their name in a completely different way, actually turning into funny shaped cups. i’ve trained myself to stick with cupcakes that are vastly different from the norm, like upside down caramel pecan cakes, or black bottom cups with a purposely sunken cheesecake center.

this time, i attempted the real deal, and who knew- they were glorious! all the way down to the lick-your-fingers cream cheese frosting with cinnamon swirl. for me, what sealed the deal was the crystallized ginger dispersed in the batter…little jewels of spice in each bite, complimenting the sweetness of the pumpkin.

pumpkin ginger cupcakes
the cupcake deck

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted, and slightly cooled
1 cup sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
3 eggs
1/4 cup crystallized ginger, cut into 1/8 to 1/4 pieces

frosting
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temp
6 ounces cream cheese, room temp
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 to 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 to 2 teaspoons milk

preheat oven to 325 with rack in center. line 12 muffin tin cups with paper liners (*i spray my liners with pam, because i’ve had a number of instances of the cupcake not wanting to leave it’s comfy paper home.).

for the cupcakes: sift all the dry goods (except for the sugar) into a medium bowl and set aside. in a large bowl, beat the melted butter, sugar and pumpkin with an electric mixer on low-med until smooth. add the eggs and chopped ginger. on low, mix in the flour mixture until incorporated (batter will be thick)

fill each paper liner with a generous 1/4 cup of batter (you know the cheapo ice cream scoops that cafeteria ladies scoop mashed potatoes with? i love scooping my cupcake batter into their cups with one of these)…about 1/2 inch from  the top of of the liner. bake till the top feels firm, and a toothpick comes out clean, about 25 minutes. cool for about 10 minutes, and then take the cakes out of the pan to continue cooling on a wire rack.

for the icing: beat the butter, cream cheese and vanilla till smooth, in a large bowl with a mixer on low (about 1 min). scrape sides as needed, and add the powdered sugar and mix till smooth on low again (about 1 min). lastly, beat for one more minute on medium to fluff and lighten the frosting.

take out 1/4 cup of the icing to a little bowl and add cinnamon and milk to it so that it is brown and pourable, but still thick enough to hold it’s own. after icing the cupcakes upon cooling (this recipe told me to use just shy of a 1/4 cup of icing per cupcake {yikes!}, and i feel like i glopped it on and still had quite a bit of icing left over), put the cinnamon icing into a ziploc, nicking a small hole off one corner… i drew concentric circles and swiped a toothpick from the center of the cupcake in alternating directions to make a marbleized web kind of look, but you could be creative with what designs you want to do!

isaac was looking forward to seeing the monkeys at first, but walking away from the zoo, he said he liked the dinosaurs best…i think i missed that exhibit??

anyways. felt great not only to hang with the kids and dena all day, but to get the camera out of the kitchen, and to experience the portland fall! (the image links to the set)

we’re here…for good this time. we had a great time in california, and i am so glad we took advantage of our bohemian life before school and potential work to see the faces we don’t get to see all that often.

got to meet our new nephew josiah and poked his chubby cheeks multiple times. we loved getting to see heidi and joe as well…and cruised through the redwoods on the zipline at the mount hermon family camp that they call home. thanks to leila for sprinkling in a bit of adventure to our weekend! we enjoyed having an unexpected friend date grabbing coffee in santa cruz…wil got to see an old friend from before moving to sisters in 7th grade (and i got to meet her for the first time!). fun fun!

instead of taking the regular i-5 down to the southern part of the state, we cruised along 101, moving in and out of agricultural areas and the coast…very pretty, and we wished we were going the opposite direction as we passed so many veggie stands with fresh picked items for dirt cheap! got to see grams and stay in arcadia, but of course, quickly made our way to the beach house. loved spending two beautiful days on the shore with grams, the vans, and michael and claire…but we were on to the next!

i don’t know what got into us that we voluntarily timed our trip to move more furniture and boxes into a freight truck (haven’t we done enough of that the last month or so???), but we got michael all packed for his return to oregon, and packed the truck in record time. ok, he did have only 6 boxes, compared to our 100.

another impromptu stop was to see our dear friend laura, who made the journey back to the west coast about a week prior to us. she lives in oakland now and we were sad to not be able to spend more than an hour with her and her boyfriend kevin. at least we’re only 7 or 8 hours away from one another instead of 7 or 8 states! we rounded off the trip in napa. and you can’t go to napa and see wil’s family without experiencing wine in every facet. this time, we had fun watching his grandpa and friend crush grapes they had picked earlier in the day and sip tastes out of oak barrels.

but, we are here now. i quickly unpacked my bag (i’m usually a ‘let it sit on the floor for about a week before unpacking’ kind of girl) because i was so excited to stop living out of a duffel bag. the dogs readjusted to the apartment and their daily routine in a matter of an hour or so, and we even went grocery shopping for real food instead of just frozen pizzas and peanut butter/jelly sandwich supplies.

for everyone who was about to ask, wil has orientation to start classes on 19th, and no i don’t have a job yet. i haven’t done anything since before we left tennessee, just being disconnected and uprooted for a few weeks. for the time being, we are chilling around the place…took our first rides on the max, wil got a new phone (and we also got new numbers…email or comment if i didn’t have your email to notify you, if you want me to give you the new digits!), and have watched a lot of favorite tv episodes online. the place is pretty much unpacked and set up…whatever piles are around are things that probably just need to go to storage. i’ll blow the dust off my camera and take pictures soon. we’ve definitely maxed out our closet capacity. i’ll probably be making a list at christmas of things we don’t want since we don’t have space! : /

hope you are all doing well!

white squirrels seen- 12

waterfalls hiked- 3

concerts & operas attended- 21

the office episodes watched- 66

RA’s managed- 12

cell phones wil possessed at the same time- 3

students on campus- 450

books read- 7

meals in the cafeteria- too many

late night practice room raids- a lot

things still going well here. the weather has been blissfully mild, and the last couple days have had some rain, which i gladly welcomed- kind of fun being in the trees with a rainstorm or two. it cleared up beautifully today, and right now i am sitting outside on the porch, just cool enough for a sweater, while someone is playing clair de lune behind laura/jason’s cabin right now (they have internet if you sit in a specific chair on a specific corner of the porch) and the crickets chirp. wonderful!

only have a little time left here…and then on to packing, house closing, moving, driving across country, finding a place to live, get job, ack!

Days here consist of not much- in a good way. Wil often sleeps in late, and if I am not joining him, I meet our friends for breakfast at the cafeteria. The highlight of many mornings are the waffle machines where you can make them fresh for yourself. : ) Laura and I have gotten into the habit of taking the dogs for a mid morning walk, which they love. We just do a loop around campus, usually catching one of the main orchestra’s practice on the way, and hardly a mile later the girls are exhausted.
I have to say, the cafeteria is not great. We sprinkle in some local burritos, thai, or pizza (or even taco bell) into our days and nights when the food is just not really edible… you can only be creative on the salad bar or make a pb&j so many times before getting bored of it.

I’m trying to sit here and think about what we usually do during the day…and it doesn’t amount to much. Some afternoons are laundry days, nap time, reading, guitar hero, recitals or afternoon concerts to go to. On hot days we’ve gone down to the dock for some sun and a dip in the chilly lake (watch out for snakes!) But for the most part, it’s any combination of the six of us…Laura/Jason (who asked us to come and is Wil’s ‘boss’), me/Wil, and Matthew/Sarah (came back from last year as the high school deans… Wil is the college dean). We eat together, sit on the porch together…

What has consumed the majority of our time and what we do every night while the deans are on call for any issues is watching The Office…Laura and Jason had never seen it, so we are going start to finish! It’s just as enjoyable to watch someone see the Jim & Pam story unfold for the first time, as it is to see the episodes again.

We stay up late…maybe have some wine or beer (funded by offering high schoolers 5 bucks to drive them into town as opposed to a $7 cab…he he), and Wil locks up the college hang out around 1am. And that’s the life. The concerts have been amazing- the larger scale ones take place on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, but there’s constant practice and things going on throughout the week. Music literally fills the air at any given moment. We’ve seen some amazing musicians and an opera already (Hello Dolly is this weekend!). Matthew likes to give us a hard time for the fact that no one famous comes from Oregon- but there is a 15 year old violin prodigy that’s pretty amazing to watch (he came last year too)…if you ever hear of Brandon Garbot playing with any of the symphonies in Portland or around home, you must go see him. (Wil picked him up from the airport when he first arrived, and told Brandon all about how he had heard about this amazing young violin player…all the while not realizing he was talking to him.)

As for life outside of Brevard…Wil’s been working on looking for apartments online. He’s got a few leads, but nothing can really happen in that department until it’s closer to September, when we can see things in person, and depending on what’s available. I started working on my portfolio- I’m giving myself a couple hours a day every other day or so to research stuff online, get my info together, etc. I’m not feeling the most encouraged or motivated…it’s hard wrapping my brain about working again when not working is so fantastic. But we won’t survive without the income if Wil is too busy to not have a job during school…ugh…being an adult…

Well, shoot an email if you want- we are finding more pockets of internet around here…right now by some stroke of luck, one of the networks way across the field picks up in our cabin ever so often. Trying to get back on the grid!

-love-

we spent a perfect saturday evening at a vineyard just south of nashville with our dear friends…wine, blankets, snacks, catch phrase, cake. it was all just too good. saw a couple get engaged down the hill too.

i don’t even want to think about not being able to hang out with these girls!!! good friendships take so long to forge; i know we will stay in touch.

i could have put the sweet normal one, but this seemed so much more appropriate.

sunday we had a showing, and just chilled in the agriculture center…the dogs rolled around in the grass and chewed bark chips, and then we walked to a creek. it was a nice preview to our summer ahead. (oh and got dollar dipped cones at mcdonalds…simple joys!)

little bit later, wil and tom hit the course in the setting tennessee sun. seeing that i won’t see wil after tonight (i have a work trip making us miss each other a couple days more), i needed to take advantage of his presence, so i walked the course with them. i think these boys will really miss each other.

wil’s last day at starbucks was yesterday, and it just felt necessary to stop by and see him in his element one last time, since i didn’t make it out to this store as often as the past stores. i was unexpectedly emotional after getting back into the car…and it wasn’t even my job! wil has spent 5 years of his life at starbucks, making it a better company and improving people’s lives.

renee came by to visit later…i think this image is a good visual of wil’s love for his store and his people for some reason.

i don’t mean to bum everybody out, like i have myself. god has just really blessed us here and it is sad to leave! but leaving is really just opening the doors to more opportunities…chances to rediscover a new place, forge new friendships, and see what god has in store for us.

tonight is our last night together for about 2 1/2 weeks…and since he’s taking the dogs to brevard, i won’t see them until i join after montana which is nearly a month! what will i do without my babies! ugh!

*i stole some pics to post…valerie took most of the arrington pics (i have some on flickr), and andy documented wil’s last day.