Renaissance Festival

This past weekend the usual crew and I set out for the Renaissance festival! Every year people dress up in medieval wear and take themselves back to a different time and place. A place where kings and queens ruled, things were only made by hand, and people spoke in a different way. The times now are so hustle bustle and less in the moment. People lived in the moment back then. Things came unexpectedly because there was no such thing as phones and internet to prepare them for just about anything. Although the festival is...well just a festival it still acts as a time machine for me.
I like to bring myself back into that time every once in a while to be free for a few hours and live simply.



If only I owned an actual time machine...

Tuesday nights + Cinnamon Roll recipe

What do you do when you have the entire house to yourself? (with the tiny exception of a sleeping hunny in the room down the hall, of course.) Well, you make sweet dough and with that sweet dough you make wonderful rolls of cinnamon commonly known as the cinnamon roll. Ryan is out for the night at a Lightning game with his brothers and I get to party it up here holding down the fort. Tuesday nights definitely take second place to Wednesdays when it comes to favorite days of the week. Tuesday nights I get to satisfy my reality show addiction and we treat as a weekend in a sense because in the bread man world Wednesdays are their days off. It's fabulous in its own little way.

You know what else is fabulous? 

This Cinnamon roll recipe. I'm telling you, it WILL steer you clear of any Cinnabun shops anywhere near you. It's that impressive. 

Ingredients:

For the dough:

• 3/4 cup warm water
• 2 1/4 teaspoons dry active yeast
• 1/2 granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup buttermilk, room temp.
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup oil
• 4-5 cups all purpose flour (depending on consistency after kneading)

For the filling:

• 1 1/4 cups brown sugar
• 2 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter (I use spreadable it makes it easier, you'll see)

For the cream cheese frosting:

 

• 2 ounces cream cheese, room temp.
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
• 1 1/4 cup powdered sugar

How to make:

The dough:

1. In the bowl of your lovely stand mixer plop your dough hook on and get all your dough ingredients prepped. 
2. Add the warm water, yeast and 1 tablespoon of the sugar to the bowl of your mixer. Whisk it around a few times and let it sit and get bubbly and yeasty for about 10 minutes. When you come back it should be foamy and puffed up looking. 
3. Grab a small bowl and whisk together the buttermilk, egg, salt and oil. Add this mixture to the yeast mixture and the rest of the sugar (7 tablespoons). Let it mix on the stir setting for 30 seconds.
4. Now add 2 cups of flour, let it incorporate and slowly start adding 1/4 cup of flour at a time until the dough pulls away from the sides. (You might have to take a long spoon and scrape to incorporate better since the dough is very sticky.)
5. Take the dough out onto a floured surface and knead until in a round smooth ball. Spray baking pam in a big glass bowl and let that baby rise for a good 1 and a half to 2 hours. Be patient!

The filling:

1. Come back to your dough ball that should have tripled in size! Flour a large surface, for me that's my dining room table (thanks small apartments). Punch air bubbles out of your dough while it's still in the bowl then place it down and roll out until its roughly 20x30 inch rectangular type thing. Doesn't have to be perfect, just get a nice rectangle.
2. Now with the back of a metal spoon take butter and spread it generously around on the rectangle. Leave a 1 inch strip of dough that's farthest away from you untouched. 
3. In small bowl mix the cinnamon, brown sugar, and cornstarch. Sprinkle it all over the butter, don't be afraid to dump it all on there you will thank me later. Next, take your rolling pin and roll over the rectangle of dough across the sugar mixture and the butter. This helps mash it in perfectly.
4. Starting with the edge of the dough closest to you begin rolling up the yummyness into a log of some sort. Seal it with the untouched edge. 
5. Slice off the uneven sides and begin slicing into the log to make the rolls. You can make these as big or small as you want. I like making massive ones so I only make about 6-7 every time I use this recipe. 
6. For the pan I use a spring form pan to really lock in the flavors and keep the filling from melting out. You can also use a glass baking pan. I also don't line mine with parchment, but you can if you want to be careful. I just use baking Pam and it does the job for me!
7. Place all the rolls into your baking dish of choice and let sit with the oven preheating so the rolls with begin to rise even more. You want them to be almost hugging each other, that's how big they really get guys.
8. One risen to your liking, bake in a 350 degree oven for 15-17 minutes and golden brown on the tops.

The cream cheese frosting (the most important part):

1. While your rolls are baking away, get our your ingredients for the frosting. This is what really makes the Cinnamon bun sparkle or should I say shine?
2. In your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the butter and cream cheese together until smooth and creamy. Add the vanilla and lemon juice, mix well. Pour in the powdered sugar gradually, not all at once. Mix mix mix and now you've got yourself a beautiful frosting to pour over these heavenly doosies. 
3. Take your rolls out of the oven and pour the frosting over top. Let it melt into the creases for about 5 minutes. Then pour once more over top and serve!

Happy rolling and baking!

Dueling Birthdays and Road tests

I know I've mentioned time and time again that this family is huge...like hot air balloon huge...like skyscraper huge. So when it comes to birthdays it's like a weekly process. One after another after another after another. And it just so happens that the majority of everybody's birthdays reside from December to April. And then there's the stragglers like myself that are out in the middle of no where (aka: the month of May). So there's at least one birthday a month, but the months of January and February are especially jam packed.
This past weekend we celebrated Stephanie's birthday and then on Tuesday night we celebrated Kyle's birthday. On Saturday night Ryan and I rushed home from work to start decorating our house with mismatched kid birthday decor while I started baking the most wonderful cake I've ever ever ever baked (which I will be sharing later this week). We had cheetah print birthday banners, zebra print streamers, a Monsters Inc. table cloth and nothing would make this party more ridiculous without My Little Pony birthday crowns. All perfect for a 22 year old's birthday party right? Well in our world it works. I got this clever idea to use a tub of frosting that was snow cone flavored on my absolutely perfect cake...but that was a total flop...NEVER AGAIN. So needless to say when she blew out the candles we cut into the cake and dug out all the good stuff, leaving the disgusting frosting behind. It was totally worth it.

For Stephanie's birthday Ryan and I got her a gigantic waffle iron so we thought the best way to break it in was to have a breakfast for dinner waffle party for Kyle on Tuesday night to celebrate yet another birthday. So that's exactly what we did.
And man did our house smell amazing. And this time we made the same amazing cake and transformed it into a mustache with cookies and cream frosting which was to die for. A much better choice. So with all the birthday bonanza aside, I must announce that I FINALLY received my drivers license. This is a big whopping deal considering the fact that I'm 21 years old. I probably dreamed about this moment for years and then finally my dreams just diminished and I just dealt with the fact that I was always going to be the passenger or I was going to go get a horse and ride it around town. I also developed a sort of fear of the day that I would take the test because I waited so long and the anticipation was gigantic. But I ended up defeating my fear and now I finally have the freedom I've needed for so long. I will not be revealing the license because I look a hot mess, because while everyone's enduring a snow storm around the US, Florida is making me sweat and resulting in a hot hot mess, which equals a really bad license picture. But it's done and I'm a happy camper. Now time to rest because the last few days have been hectic and I need to pop all these balloons scattered through out my house.

Horses and Downtown Tampa

Every year around our anniversary we always go on some sort of new adventure that we wouldn't normally do on a regular day. The first year we attended the Florida state fair and I shrieked on pretty much every ride with joy and we ate tons of fried everything. The second year was the year that Harry Potter world had been built at Universal and Island of Adventure so it was a must that we cheers to two years together with butter beer. Not to mention everything else the parks have to offer. We were in heaven, amusements parks = heaven. We also went to the annual Rennaisance festival and lived in the medieval times for a day (this was the day that a magician sawed me in half on stage...yes I was frantic). And then there was last year, the third year. We spent the day gazing at underwater friends at the Florida Aquarium and they had the freaking best chili cheese fries ever invented (yes I was pregnant, but they were amazing).
We look forward to these adventures every year, because our lives are already super crazy and adventurous as it is, but it's nice to just get away from it all and discover something new. This year, we decided to go horseback riding. Neither of us have rode horses before, and I'm going to tell you right now watching somebody ride a horse and actually riding one are two totally different things. Everybody makes it look so easy peezy! So we met our trail guide and our horses, I had Buffy and Ryan had Tootsie. And soon enough we set off into the wilderness, except for the fact that Buffy was all about doing her own thing and was not a follower. So there goes the trail guide, tootsie and Ryan and I'm kicking like a mad woman trying to get this horse to go. It was like pulling teeth people. Finally she decided that it was time and I caught up. Once we got further away from the ranch she started to warm up to me, but goodness was this horse stubborn. A horse after my own heart...
As we got deeper into the trail we started trotting and I was for sure I was going to fly off and get trampled by my stubborn horse, but Ryan and I balanced pretty good and it was a blast. Such an adrenaline rush, and we both couldn't help imagining we were in Game of Thrones heading to Kings Landing.
We will definitely be back.


We waddled back to our car, thinking we would probably never feel our thighs ever again. We decided it was time to get some grub. We visited Downtown Tampa and walked around a bit to get the feeling back in our legs. We came upon a little pizza shop and it was love at first sight. I pretty much fell in love with the dough I could have probably just ordered their dough and been a happy camper. Afterwords we walked around a bit stumbled upon a chocolatier and I got the richest truffle I've ever had, it was like a chocolate explosion in my mouth. We also adventured around a bit and discovered the biggest bowling pin in the world, and a bowling alley right smack dab in downtown. So we definitely have plans on coming back as soon as possible.

So all in all it was a blast, just like every year because adventures with Ryan always are. I love adventuring through life with him and every year is always something new. And that's what I love the most about our relationship, we still know how to surprise each other even after four years. That, I know, will never change.

Pampering

For the last few Fridays, Ryan has been attending a class that specializes in MMA. Don't ask me what it's really all about because I don't have a clue. It's some sort of buff fighter deal mixed in with getting fit or something like that?  Not sure, but I know he really loves to go and it gives him an escape from the realities of everyday life as a breadman. At first I was like hm...okay what to do with this little bit of time once Lola is snug in her bed? I was at a loss honestly, but as I sat on the couch and listened to the complete and total silence of our apartment it hit me. Pamper yourself.

Fridays have now become an exploration of all the many things I can do to comfort myself with my very own alone time. Ever since Lola came along, alone time is scarce. I'm perfectly fine with it, but I am totally reveling in this new space for my mind to be at ease on its own for a change. I pamper myself in strange ways, but also very familiar ways. Baking new things and losing myself in the hum of my mixer. Catching up on my mental stack of books and escaping into whatever adventure is written on page after page. Finishing paintings and working on new creations for our walls. Sewing sewing and more sewing because my sewing machine and work area is my ultimate comfort zone when I need a break from the everyday hustle and bustle. I also like to lose myself in a bath acompanied by lavender oils and Yankee candles. And sometimes just plopping down on the couch and reveling in the sounds of my cats prancing around and the pure silence is just enough. It's the little things like that are just...enough.
I needed this and I don't feel guilty for this.

L+F List

This list is going to be my sidekick for the entire year. It's going to be whispering in my ear on those ordinary days reminding me of my progression and expereinces to come. This list is going to be a guide of some sort, no special order, just jumbled and rumbled so I can grasp onto my time a little bit longer or speed things up a bit if needed. The memories and successes that this list holds will travel with me for more and more years to come because I made them happen. And then there will be the other marks on the list that carry me softly through the wind unknowing of where we are going.

I'm not sure why I never did a list earlier in my life. I suppose I'm at a different chapter in my life now. A chapter that is driving me to find and discover more out of 365 days than I ever have before. Making a list of things for each given year entrigues me. There are so many things I want to do, see, experience, feel, etc. that my mind could have exploded last year with idea palooza. Combining them all in a list, calms my soul and forces me to realize that the time is there, but it can also slip away in an instant. So be mindful. That's actually the number one on my list. Be mindful.

As the year goes on, and as a pencil marking strikes through a point on the list, I will make a post about it. 

The Lost & Found list

• Be more mindful
• Make Lola a felt book of the seasons.
• Lose the weight I've been trying to lose for ages.
• Make a jar of magical happenings in our house for us to read at the end of the year.
• Make homemade pasta.
• Throw a hungry hungry caterpillar birthday for Lola.
• Develop a new style.
• Keep learning sign language and teaching it to Lola and Ryan.
• A four year anniversary celebration with Ryan.
• Go on a road trip.
• Finally get my drivers license.
• Go back to school.
• Bring my camera everywhere and I mean everywhere.
• See snow.
• Cut down our own christmas tree.
• Breathe deeper.
• Go to Ginnie Springs.
• Take more naps.
• Pamper myself more.
• Go to the renaissance festival and bring Lola. 
• See a play at Ruth Eckerd Hall.
• Read at least 10 books.
• Discover something new about myself.