Slacker ...

slack·er  (slkr)n.

1. One who shirks work or responsibility: "In terms of their outlook on the future, slackers regard tomorrow with a studied cynicism or . . . don't even conceive of one" (Julie Caniglia).

 

So, I've definitely been a Blog Slacker or a Slacker Blogger of late.  There hasn't been much going on and when there was I didn't blog about it.  Here are some pictures of the last week +.

 

Mikey's First School Performance

 

and then there was Cocktail Wednesday ... the best one so far.

 

Unfortunately, I didn't get a great picture of the drinks, but they were beautiful.  The mint, lime, and frozen cranberries made them super festive.  We will definitely have these again.  Check out Mrs. Pyjamas and Little Miss Sunshine's posts for their review of the same cocktail.

Hopefully, this week I will stay on top of things a little more. 

Cheers!

Cocktail Wednesday

so, this week it was my turn to pick the cocktail.  Since last week's was so summery, I thought I would go for something more cold weather-ish (we're actually getting down to the 30s tonight in Northern California), so I picked a coffee cocktail. called The Bacon Maple Syrup.  

I thought -- how could you go wrong with something with that name. boy was I wrong.  This one was so bad I couldn't even finish mine.

Here's the picture of what it was supposed to look like.

 

That looks pretty good, right?

Here's what mine looked like.

 

Not nearly so pretty.

• 1.5oz of rum 
• 1oz of Calisaya liqueur (couldn't find this so I used Angostura Bitter)
• .75oz of maple syrup 
• coffee
• frothed milk
• garnished with a cured bacon skewer

I mixed the alcohol and syrup and then added the coffee and frothed milk (actually just heated milk since I don't have a frother).  I thought perhaps that if I had used fresh coffee and genuinely frothed milk it would have tasted better, but Marg assured me that it was still disgusting.

I'm not sure they'll let me pick another cocktail .. but if given another chance, I'm going for something more basic and one that I'm sure to like.

 

Elephants on Parade

I finished the pink elephant quilt.  Now I just need to wash it and ship it off.

I like the way this has come together. It's a lot of pink, which I hope is okay.  I love the back too.  I used scraps, but I hope it looks planned and not too scrappy.

The Turkey Trot - Thanksgiving 2013

So, this year, on Thanksgiving morning my husband and I, and our oldest, his wife, our youngest, her boyfriend, and my nephew ran in the Silicon Valley Turkey Trot.  It's a 5k/10 walk. 

Here we all are before the race .. I don't have any after pictures.  :(.  Anyway, this was my first "race" ever.  There were about 20,000 people running.  I came in 202nd in my age/gender group.  Don't know how many women my age were running ... I walked/ran it in 42 minutes even - about a 13.5 minute mile.

I think I want to make this a family tradition -- even the little ones can join in.

Cocktail Wednesday

This week's cocktail was great -- Tiffany's Lemonade! Shay gave it another name but I'm sticking with that one.

Here are the ingredients:

• 1 oz Peach Snapps
• Frozen or Fresh lemonade
• a smidge of Blue Curaco
• Sugar (for the glass rim) optional
• Lemon wedges
• Ice

I followed the directions from here.  A very refreshing drink -- great for summertime, or so I hear -- perhaps we should go for a cold weather cocktail next week. :).

  

Doesn't look quite as pretty as the pictures from the link above (or Shay's pictures either), but it tasted really good.  Like lemonade with a hint of peaches.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  We have a lot of cooking to do in the morning, but before that I'm going to run in a Turkey Trot.

finally ..

finally, I did some sewing today.

Cocktail Wednesday

Tonight's cocktail is a Candy Corn Cocktail.  Check out Shay's post on it.  It's difficult joining in when the reviews are not stellar -- but I'm committed to it this week, I've already put the vodka in with the candy corn ...

and a friend is coming over to help with this tasting.

Here's the link for the recipe we used: http://www.gingersnapsblog.com/2013/10/recipe-candy-corn-martini.html.  I googled "candy corn martini" today and found several others.

 

 

 

The vodka/candy corn mixture wasn't nearly as clear as the one in the link.  I didn't do the "glasses" up as pretty as Shay, though I did dip the rims in sugar.  We actually thought the martini tasted okay.  I might even say pretty good.  I don't have a rating scale yet (Shay's was 2.5 out of 5.0), but this was so much better than last week's.  Last week's cocktail's only saving grace was that the vodka wasn't infused with anything (i.e., candy corn) so the vodka was still usable (we used it this week). 

 

I didn't read the directions on how much candy corn and vodka to put in the jar which may account for the cloudiness of the mixture and I used lemon vodka. 

 

Anyway, on to next week ..

 

p.s. don't you just love the plastic martinit glasses??

 



Update - The List

I looked over my list of goals for 2013 today.  I feel like I've done a pretty good job on them.  I didn't do a tally, but it's definitely better than last year. 

One thing I am going to try to do is to finish the 9 quilts.  I've finished 5; there are three tops close to finished; and the final quilt is my Grinch quilt.  So, I need to buckle down and do some sewing.  I'll get started tomorrow night.  Actually, I'm missing one from my list -- the stacked sock monkey quilt -- nice to know I only have three more to finish, not four!

Cocktail Wednesday

so, I decided to follow Little Miss Sunshine and Mrs. Pyjamas and mix it up, literally, on Wednesday with a cocktail.  I'm not sure why they're doing it, but I'm doing it just to copy them.  This week's cocktail was a Lemon Meringue Cocktail.  The recipe was simple, but the result not so good.

 

It was quite potent and everyone here turned their noses up at it.  I decided to google it and found several other recipes that I will try should I ever have the desire to have a Lemon Meringue Cocktail again.  

In order to drink this one, I diluted it with lemonade.  After doing that, my YD said it was less horrible, but still horrible.  hmmm.

I finished my lemonade diluted Lemon Meringue Cocktail and am feeling quite ready for bed.

Can't wait to see what is picked for next week's cocktail...

11 things on 11/11

1 - copying good ideas from other people's blogs
2 - reading a good book
3 - realizing that tomorrow is 11/12/13
4 - eating oreos
5 - wishing I hadn't eaten those oreos
6 - owing $1.75 to the office snack machine
7 - wishing it was Friday already
8 - listening to the clock ticking
9 - remembering good friends
10 - listening to Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"*
11 - snuggling in my bed


*it was 38 years ago yesterday that it went down in the icy waters of Lake Superior.

Happy Birthday!

Just wanted to take time to wish my wonderful husband a Happy Birthday!