What Peanut Butter Can Tell Us About Real Life

Happy Friday Dabblers! Did you know that today is National Peanut Butter Day? 

In honor of that delicious fact, I thought I'd share my "real life" photo of how I am celebrating this glorious occasion. In the ideal food blogging world, I might be making this, this, or this, but instead I am writing to you over lunch whilst eating this delicious, yet sad? display. 

When I thought about taking this photo and posting it, I had to laugh because it's a pretty good visual of what the last two weeks have been like. Today is a, "my hair looks how I feel...and so does my lunch" type of day. So for those of you who saw my latest porkchop meal post on Instagram and went "How do people cook like that??"...have no fear: 1. It's not complicated and I have lofty goals to post the ease with which you can make that meal this weekend, and 2. This is what real life looks like.

 

The wonderful thing about food is that despite it's simplicity or not-so-glamorous appearance, it still has the power to nourish and ground you. In this case, it also gave me the excuse to close my office door for a brief moment...this got messy pretty fast.

Warning: non-appetizing photo coming at you...

This past weekend, we ripped up the carpet in our basement in preparation for new floors being installed on Wednesday (gross to the extreme).  Well, we are still floorless...so send your best home improvement project vibes our way. I anticipate the job being completed by tomorrow and to celebrate the end of "the floor saga," I'm thinking of making a second round of The Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls. I really enjoy cooking, but baking will always be my true love. I find measuring flour to be incredibly soothing (whatever works for you, right?). Plus, there is a lot of butter (comfort) in this recipe and it makes enough to feed several armies of cinnamon roll eaters so I can give the pans away as thank yous to all those who have helped us survive the flooring install (mom, you're the best).  

I found this quote on Pinterest recently: "Talking about our problems is our greatest addiction. Break the habit. Talk about your joys." -Rita Schiano. 

How powerful is that? I have found myself slipping into this trap recently and so, I want to share with all of you one of the greatest sources of joy in my life right now: T and I are going to be uncle and aunt to the most wonderful little girl pretty soon. 

Many weeks ago, we had a small family gathering to celebrate and my brother and sister-in-law announced the sex of the baby. I made my fan-favorite Carrot Cake and had so much fun constructing this cake topper.

It was so simple. Step 1. Attach a piece of string to two wooden skewers with Elmer's glue. Step 2. Knot various colors and lengths of ribbon around the string. Step 3. Attach two triangles of construction paper to a shorter wooden skewer using glue. Step 4. Write your festive message on the flag and voila! Cake topper. 

My favorite part of the pre-dinner prep was that T also was so excited. He got into his mind that there needed to be a "reveal scheme." He came home from work with these printed signs and attached them with duck tape to two of his baseball hats. Let's take a moment for a confession...I love that man. To his delight, these were employed at the party and my brother put the "GIRL" hat onto his wife as we all screamed with joy. 

The thing is...my brother is the best. My sister-in-law is the best. The fact that we are going to have a little one joining us all soon is the best.

What are your joys this week?

-The Delicious Dabbler