2012--a people post!

 why yes we still rock Millenium party hats.  and sparkling juice for the under-agers.

 

 half my bridesmaids! favorite women in the world.

classy sister. in from Bratislava!

I call this a people post because it's extremely rare for me to feature pictures of actual human beings on this blog instead of the typical food and nature shots! The benefit of living back at home is that I actually have people around to photograph again :)

We rang in 2012 with our traditional basement party. I straightened my hair and drank lots of wine with my sisters and best friends.

I'm pretty excited to say hello to 2012. I've been looking forward to this year for a while, because to me it represents the year that--in my mind--I move forward in life from student to adult, which has been a looong time coming. I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen this year, except for getting married in October ! I don't know what job I will discover next, or where Ben and I will be living. For now we are back to the long-distance thing, staying with our parents and applying for jobs. I have mixed feelings about this transitional period.  For the past seven years my hometown house has served as a layover spot to dump my bags on holiday breaks or collect my worldly belongings between cross-country moves. I never imagined that I would be one of "those" 20-somethings who move back in with their parents. Well, life is full of surprises and humbling experiences, and a large part of me is relieved and happy to be able to actually spend time with my family and not stress out about school or moving again (yet!). Still, I have waves of anxiety when I think too long about all the unknowns and the job applications and rejections I'll be facing for the next days, weeks, months. I miss Ben and miss having a little life with him. We got an amazing teaser while living in Oregon that is only making me more excited to be married and settle into a new life and new little family together. 

I thought 2011 was the year for huge changes: finishing my thesis, getting engaged, graduating with my Masters degree, moving across the country, facing enormous money and job stress with Ben, moving back home (all in my poor little Ford Focus). I have a feeling that 2012 is going to be even bigger though, and I hope to find peace that comes with knowing my decisions are propelling me farther down the path I'm meant to travel. Only time and more hard work will tell! Life is exhausting, isn't it?

a new start

 

Life has been extra topsy turvy the past few weeks. I am sitting in my old bedroom at home in Illinois and trying to figure out how it came to be Christmas so suddenly.

Ben and I have said good-bye to our airy apartment and the mountains of southern Oregon. My field position reached its end and we made the decision to pack our cars and drive home not only for the holidays but for good, until one of us finds a new job. It's dangerously easy to get sucked into the frustration and discouragement of the job market, and I hope that we will find out what we're meant to be doing soon. In the meantime, I'm enjoying my first Christmas out of school and trying hard to get used to the strange feeling of having nothing in the works for the coming new year. No new semester to jump into, no job to go back to, the future is only open space waiting to be filled with events and changes that I can't see yet. A strange feeling.

sparkly cranberry muffins

Happy December!

I am SO excited for holiday season, and am currently trying to balance my cravings for holiday baking projects with my attempts at a vague "between holiday" detox in which I chug ginger lemon tea, start to put running back in my life, and eat lots of produce. We'll see how it goes....

I had lots of fresh cranberries left over from my epic Thanksgiving apple-cranberry pie and decided to make muffins, a kind of healthier spinoff of the Jiffy cranberry bread mixes I grew up on. The muffins turned out even better than I had hoped for, and they look so cute and festive studded with the bright red cranberries. The sugar topping is essential to balance out the tartness and add that bakery-style sparkle! I'm kind of obsessed with these.

Sparkly Cranberry Muffins

adapted from Joy of Cooking

Yields 10-12 muffins

Dry ingredients:

• 2 cups white whole wheat flour
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Wet ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup plain or vanilla yogurt
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 cup sugar (can use up to 2/3 cup)
• 1/2 cup fresh cranberries
• zest from one orange
• 1 to 2 Tablespoons"big" sugar for topping (i.e. sanding sugar or turbinado. I used Sugar in the Raw brand.)

Preheat oven to 400*F. Combine dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Whisk together wet ingredients in a large bowl. Dump the dry ingredients into the large bowl and gently mix until JUST combined (with muffins it's ok to still have dry clumps and streaks in the batter). Spoon into a greased or paper-cup lined muffin tin. Fill tins to the brim for big muffins (will make ~10) or 3/4 full for regular sized muffins (go big or go home). Sprinkle the tops of muffins with sanding sugar and bake for 20 minutes, or until tops of muffins are lightly browned.

You could probably bake this in a bread tin as well, but the baking time would double.