Of course, I knew fall was coming. I was maybe in a bit of denial for the last three weeks of chilly rain, fog, and woodstove fires.
Don't get me wrong, I love fall. But, for the first time ever, I am not especially looking forward to it.
Thursday marked the first appearance of snow on the mountains + 38 degrees. September weather has been treating us a lot better than August. Now we have beautiful (but cold) sunshine, with abrupt bouts of extremely strong rain. It's a blast. The red flies are out in full force too.
Anyway, fall is here!
Introducing my newest obsession:
healthy snickers.
These healthy snickers taste amazing. I cannot explain how delicious these are. Added bonus? They are so so simple to make. You can just spend ten minutes and store a huge batch in the freezer.
All you need is pitted medjool dates, peanut butter or almond butter, and sugar free chocolate. Just barely slice into a date (almost like you're making a loaded potato), fill with peanut butter (warm up in the microrwaave to make it easier to work with), and then dunk in your SF melted chocolate chips (I melt with some coconut oil). If you want, add a tiny piece of graham cracker in the middle...it's the best.
These things are seriously so good, perfect for a quick breakfast on the road, a midday snack, or a late night sugar craving.
Life Lately | August
Wow! It's been a minute since I've done a Life Lately (or a post in general, sorry!!) Now that summer has been closed (for the most part), I'm excited to start doing these monthly posts. They're one of my favorites.
Life has been crazy busy and I feel like I'm just getting my schedule figured out. We'll see how this next month goes.
So, where were we?
August...you've got to love it. August is my second least favorite month, mainly because of the huge amount of tourists finishing off vacation. The first cruise ship docking was May 8 and the last is October 14...it lasts a long time. Mid-September is when things start quieting down a bit more. The bugs and this extremely persistent rain have also made August more difficult. We've gotten so, so much rain.
Actually, today it's sunny, a welcome relief from the weather. I'm about to go to work and sitting in the library finishing up some homework. I was the first person in here and so I was able to claim my favorite spot. So far one person has been kicked out.
This month has been busy with my work schedule (just three more days left!!!), hanging out with friends, and preparing for school.
My friend group has done so well hanging out this summer (mostly because two of them were only up here working for the summer). We went camping, had poker nights, game nights, movie nights, after church Subway get-togethers...the goodbyes at the last football game were so sad.
Oh yeah, I bought a car! It was a very last-minute decision. The guy selling it dropped the price because he was moving (literally the next morning). My mom, brother, and I drove up to Anchorage around 8 p.m., bought it around 10:30, visited my aunt around 11 p.m., and got home around 1 a.m. It was crazy. He's a white 2007 Rav4 with just a few issues haha. Hopefully, after a brief stay at the body shop, he'll be ready to go :)
I did a room renovation I have been dreaming about for a decade. I bought wood laminate flooring and tore up my carpet. My bed frame also broke during that process.
I got a desk! My desk was just way too small, and I knew that this school load was going to require me to have a good study area. So far, I am completely in love with it.
We said goodbye to all of the puppies. Carson went to a family in Colorado, Daisy went to a family in Seward, Bates went to my aunt and her family, and Sybil (now Shiloh) is ours! We decided to keep her, and so far (besides the normal puppy nonsense), she's been amazing. She's more chill than the others and she loves to snuggle.
That's all I can think of! Hope you have a great rest of your day, and thank you for reading!
This year I am pursuing my associate degree in liberal arts through CCU Academy. I am taking five courses through them: College Writing, General Psychology, C.S Lewis in Film & Literature, New Testament, and Intro to Statistics, as well as a Graphic Design class through our co-op.
Notebooks:
I wanted to try dotted notebooks because I love taking elaborate notes, these ones from Amanaple are fantastic. The pages are thick, the binding is durable and the colors are pretty nice.
I'm sitting in a bustling coffee shop, overlooking the bay and working on my English class discussion. The disjointed conversations around me, the hiss of the espresso machine and the clink of silverware on plates provides a soundtrack for me as I drink my decaf macadamia nut latte. So far, several interesting things have happened.
A lady has fallen backwards out of her chair...several kind gentleman came over to help her and she pushed them away, embarrassingly and loudly proclaiming that she's fine.
A small family (they look like tourists) came in with a whole bunch of bananas. They sit at a table and eat their bananas.
Another man comes down from the loft and he is also eating a banana.
Yet another lady throws away her banana peel. The coffee shop does not sell bananas.
The lady in front of me buys $130 dollars worth of coffee, pastries, and a bracelet.
A couple sitting close to me are arguing about how to say Cuba. The man insists a coo-ba, his wife laughs and says cue-ba.
There's a lot more even.
Parent Trap
Aladdin
Jumanji
Dan in Real Life
The Proposal
Italian Job
Leap Year
Christmas with the Kranks
Father of the Bride
Tangled
I work in a gelato shop...we have over 50 flavors.
Our sorbet flavors include grapefruit, lemon, litchi, green apple, mango, pineapple, peach, pear, fruits of the forest, chocolate and strawberry.
Our gelato flavors include mint, cookies n cream, midnight mint, chocolate, ruby chocolate, vanilla, tiramisu, honeycomb, salted pretzel, cherry, cinnamon toast crunch, bon bon, cotton candy, fruity pebbles, butter pecan, lemon meringue, hazelnut, pistachio, coconut, coffee, peanut butter...and more.
But I have a lot of flavors that I want to be added to our rotation. Here are just a few.
snickerdoodle (autumn season)
caramel apple (autumn season)
turtle (caramel, cashew, chocolate)
strawberries n cream
peaches n cream
lemon lime sorbet
Reese's peanut butter cup
maple bacon
cookie dough
eggnog (obviously seasonal)
apple pie
rocky road (chocolate, walnut, and marshmallow)
strawberry shortcake
raspberry white chocolate
I shared this in my What I Eat for a Day, but I really think it deserves its own post. I've been very fascinated with cooking recently, so when I decided to have the leftover hamburger for lunch I decided to fancy it up a little bit.
I started out with caramelizing some onions, I chopped about quarter of a yellow onion into thin slices in a small saucepan on medium heat, stirring occasionally. I love caramelizing onions and these were the best ones so far, soft and aromatic and slightly sweet with a beautiful browning.
In a small pan I melted a bit of butter with bacon bits and chives picked straight from the garden until the bacon was barely sizzling. I put that aside and toasted a burger bun in the same pan, and then reheated the beef patty with some cheddar cheese.
For assembly I just piled some onions and the bacon chive mixture on top of the cheese on the burger (it was a bit messy), generously applied barbecue sauce and enjoyed.
Literally, if the beef patty was made from scratch I think this might've been one of my favorite burgers ever. It was smoky with a hint of sweetness and the chives I think really helped it out. Highly recommend!
8:00 am water
8:23 am Breakfast Smoothie: frozen blueberries, raspberries and blackberries blended with yogurt, protein powder, and almond milk (I like to put coconut shreds in the bottom!) I love to put frozen spinach or baby greens in smoothies but we were out :(
water :)
2:41 pm BBQ BACON BURGER WITH CARAMELIZED ONIONS, CHIVES AND CHEDDAR (culinary career? this was one of the best burgers I'd ever had). with baby carrots on the side.
water
more water
5:56 Snack (we were in town)
9:26 Tortilla Soup
water
water :-)
