These posts are always fun to put together, hope you're enjoying them too. Are you obsessed with something I should know about? Let me know!
Cooking
I recommended these silicon lids on Instagram and realized I had never shared here! They are heatproof to 550 degrees so you can use them when you're cooking to cover dishes that don't have lids. They can also be used in the microwave to prevent splatter instead of using a paper towel. And they create a full seal, so you can use them to cover dishes in the refrigerator instead of using tin foil or plastic wrap, or to cover serving dishes to keep food hot. I honestly wasn't sure how much I would use them, but Jeff and I use them multiple times per day and have saved so much plastic wrap / aluminum foil / paper towels! They also are dishwasher safe so we just toss them in at the end of the day and have a full set clean and ready to go the next morning.
I went a little crazy cooking for the Super Bowl - anyone else forget they were just cooking for their quarantine pod? I planned the menu thinking it would be just me, Jeff, and Mia, and honestly I don't know what I was thinking besides that of course we needed dip but of course we couldn't just have one app for the game and of course we still needed to have dinner too. Luckily Jeff's parents ended up coming over to join us because otherwise my stomach might have actually exploded. We did these sheet pan nachos and oooooooooh my gee. So freaking good. Maybe just plan for these to be your full meal if there are only two of you though, the four of us didn't even finish them off. I also made Chrissy Teigen's onion dip (from Cravings) and knife and fork meatball subs (from Hungry For More) and like honestly I'm drooling thinking about diving into those meatballs again.
I also thought it would be fun to make sugar cookies with Mia which was an exciting experience to say the least. Frosting in her hair and on every surface in the kitchen, sprinkles everywhere, and lots of poke marks on the cookies. Plus she coughed on a bunch of them 🙈Luckily the cookies were just for us! Anyway I followed this three ingredient sugar cookie recipe from Kelly in the City (I did add vanilla per the rec, and had to add a little water to the dough bc it was too crumbly to roll) but they turned out to be the perfect cookie for frosting - not too sweet! I come from a strictly sprinkles-only cookie decorating family so it was exciting for me to put buttercream on a cookie and they turned out so. freaking. good. I think we'll have to make them every year now, but maybe with less cookie coughing. For people who normally frost cookies - how do you store them? I tried stacking in containers and the ones at the bottom fused into a giant cookie cake. Not really complaining about the cookie cake situation, but I'm not sure how to avoid in the future when I might be sharing cookies with other people - lots of wax paper?
Reading
Jeff always makes fun of me for picking the saddest books and honestly, I'm not sure how it always ends up happening. But anyway, I finished reading Betty last week and holy moly it was really good but so so sad and disturbing. The novel follows Betty's half white, half Native American family living in the hills of southern Ohio in the 1960s. Betty just wants to write stories, giggle with her sisters, have friends at school, and spend time with her father, but is continually faced with incredible racism, mental health issues, rape and incest, and "the curse" that must have been put on their family after moving into a house with a dark past. I had a hard time getting through some of the scenes but still had to see it through to the end.
Quarantivitying
I honestly haven't been blogging much lately (read: took almost a month off - whoops!) because I've been spending my blogging time either working on Cricut projects or my paint-by-number kit, and I finally finished my painting last week!! The kit says it's a 12 hour project but honestly it probably took double that, partially because I'm a perfectionist but also partially because some of the paint colors weren't very thick and needed multiple coats to cover the lines and numbers on the canvas. I loved doing it though, it was so relaxing and the perfect little break from work or momming. She definitely is a Monet though, looks cute from far away but don't get too close! I think I'm still going to eventually get her framed though and figure out a place to hang her!
Buying
You might have seen on my instas that I picked up a few new arrivals from J.Crew (currently 30% off with code SPRING) and loooove them. Even if I won't get to wear them for a while because apparently we live in the arctic tundra now. I got this blouse and this blouse and they are so beautiful in person. I also picked up some new white skinny jeans because I pulled mine out of the closet to wear a couple weeks ago and realized they look terrible between being all stretched out and having quite a few stains. I have tried J.Crew's toothpick white skinny jeans in previous years and didn't like the fit (they were always too baggy around the knee/calf), not sure if the cut changed or my body changed but I love them now! And yes, despite what you may have heard on TikTok, you can still wear skinny jeans ;)
I also am in the process of ordering Mia way too many birthday gifts! Will report back on what she actually likes, but we're trying this sensory kit, a couple of new books (I'm personally most excited about the second Escargot book - we got the first Escargot for Christmas and it is hysterical!), a bed for her Bitty Baby since Mia loves putting her baby down to nap, and lots and lots of puffy stickers.
