it's beginning to look a lot like...

Fall. Dangit, it's only October. 10/11/12, actually! Pretty cool. Why is it that I DESPERATELY want to eat Thanksgiving dinner while listening to Christmas music and somehow simultaneously wrapping presents, baking cookies, and watching a Christmas movie? What's wrong with me? Don't answer that.

But alas, here it is.. only October 11th. Thanksgiving is SO far away! But then as soon as it IS Thanksgiving and it is FINALLY acceptable to listen to Christmas music and be all "yay Christmas!" without getting death stares or "it's too early" comments, it's over in the blink of an eye.

Is anyone with me on this? Or is it just me that looked up the Glee Christmas albums on iTunes yesterday and listened to the preview of every.single.song because a. I'm too cheap to actually buy the album and b. it's freaking October? Anyone? No?

Alright, I'm done whining about this. But just know that I am bottling up tons of holiday excitement. I have four lists going on my "Lists" app: Christmas Cookies, Christmas Wish List, Christmas Shopping, and Christmas Decorating/To Do. I also INSIST that we watch every single one of our Christmas movies EVERY year, and we usually buy at least one new one each year too. This year, we are definitely buying Arthur Christmas. Loved it!

And yes, I am this ridiculous in real life. Just ask Dillon. We have a deal, him and I. I don't play Christmas music until the day after Thanksgiving each year [read: I don't play it around him], and in exchange, he doesn't complain about me playing Christmas music during every possible waking moment from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

No, I'm not kidding. Wrapping presents? Perfect occasion for music. Decorating the tree? Obviously. Baking cookies? It just wouldn't be the same without it. Christmas music just.. makes everything more Christmas-y. I am beyond excited to hear Christmas music on the radio and not feel ridiculous about listening to Christmas pandora stations all day at work.

Am I completely alone here? I can't be the only crazy person who LOVES everything Christmas.

I guess I should go enjoy fall while it's still here. Rake some leaves [with my non-existent rake], carve some pumpkins, bake some apple crisp, and continue to despise everything pumpkin flavored [with two exceptions: Dillon's mom's pumpkin roll (um hello, cream cheese frosting) and my sister's pumpkin cake (um hello, cake)].


Happy Thursday, everyone! I actually hate Thursday's. But that's a story for another day. Probably a Thursday. Which I hate.

wordless weekend.

tomatoes with artichokes.

Is there anything better than fresh, homegrown tomatoes during summer?

Sure, you could make an argument for peaches. I would gladly eat a peach a day for all of peach season if I could. But tomatoes still have my heart.

I don't understand people who don't like tomatoes. Dillon is one of those people and it is so heart breaking! I constantly nag him to "just try one!" and say "they're so delicious!", but he's stubborn when it comes to things he thinks he doesn't like. (He's probably rolling his eyes reading this.)

My parents had some AMAZING tomato plants this year. Every weekend they would send me home with enough tomatoes to get me through the week! You know what they say: A tomato a day keeps the.... no wait, forget that.

I SWEAR that the only reason people who don't like tomatoes feel that way is because they have only tried them out of season. Winter tomatoes (in NY) are totally flavorless and have gross texture. So if you are one of those people, seriously- just try a fresh one ONCE with a little salt and THEN we can chat. Deal?

Anyways... getting off my soap box...

One of my favorite things to do with fresh tomatoes is to peel them, slice them, and put them on top of some buttered toast with salt. My family calls it "tomato toast" and I have eaten it my entire life.

I also love to eat mulligan. [Notice I was careful to say eat in that sentence.. not make. Sure, I will make it if I have to... but it's time consuming and my mom is the expert! I'll leave it to the expert. (Read: I'm lazy and like when my mom cooks for me)]

And that brings us to tomatoes with artichokes. Tomatoes are fabulous on their own, but when you combine them with a jar of marinated artichoke hearts? Unbelievable flavor. You have to try this. Only two ingredients!

Tomatoes with Artichokes

6-8 medium sized tomatoes

2 jars marinated artichoke hearts

Pour the juice from both jars of artichokes into a medium-sized mixing-bowl (or serving bowl). Dice the artichokes up into small pieces (maybe about ring fingernail sized) and add to the bowl.

Peel and core all of the tomatoes. Dice into small pieces. Scrape into the bowl with the artichokes, making sure that you get all the juice from the tomatoes into the bowl as well.

Stir well to combine. Serve! (If you'd prefer, you could refrigerate it before serving, but I find it to be better at room temperature)

Can be stored in the fridge and then taken out about an hour before serving.  Enjoy :)

I'm off for a fun-filled weekend of s'mores, watching the sun set, drinking coffee by the fire, and pretending that fall isn't right around the corner [Which I'm secretly ecstatic about. Bring on the pumpkin carving, apple picking, tea drinking, sweater wearing, and leave crunching.]

Jeter's ready for fall! He's not a fan of hot weather, so he is loving the extra walks we are taking lately. Just thought I'd share a picture from our walk the other day. Happy almost Friday, friends! :)

peanut butter cup rice krispie treats.

Reasons you should make these:

1. You don't have to turn on the stove.
2. Chocolate. Peanut butter. Marshmallows. Rice krispies.
3. Everyone will love your guts.
4. They are super easy and fun to to make. Make them with your kids!
5. See #2.

Do it!

Peanut Butter Cup Rice Krispie Treats
Recipe from Picky Palate
makes 1 13x9 pan full, roughly 16 squares

6 cups rice krispie cereal
1 bag mini marshmallows
1/4 cup butter
2 cups creamy peanut butter
1 bag mini Reeces peanut butter cups, quartered

Measure cereal into a large mixing bowl and set aside.

Place marshmallows and butter into a large microwavable bowl (I used a glass mixing bowl) and microwave until puffed up, or about 3 minutes. Remove from microwave and stir to combine the butter with the marshmallows.

Pour marshmallow/butter mixture into the cereal bowl and stir to combine. Pour into a greased 9x13 baking pan and press to make even. To make this easier, I took a metal spoon and sprayed it with cooking spray and used the back of it to press the treats down and smooth them out so they were even. If you don't, it will be hard to spread them as the warm marshmallows will stick to your spoon.

Melt the peanut butter in a microwavable save bowl for about 45 seconds. Pour the quartered peanut butter cups into the peanut butter and quickly stir (don't take too long doing this or the peanut butter cups will all melt and you wont have the nice texture on top of the treats). Pour the peanut butter mixture on top of the rice krispie treats and spread evenly.

If desired, melt a little extra peanut butter or chocolate chips to drizzle on top once cooled a little to make a nice design, however this is not necessary. I just used the leftover melted peanut butter in the bottom of the bowl to drizzle over the top.

adventures in boston [the sights].

I already told you all about the food I ate while in Boston, so this post is dedicated to just the sights and what I did while there. First of all, I'm 6 years old at heart. I still sleep with a stuffed animal... every night. What? Totally normal. 

Anyways, the housekeeper who cleaned my room every day for almost two weeks always put my stuffed animals on my bed after she made it in different/adorable ways. Also, I had a king size bed. All to myself. I could [and did during one very memorable, life changing nap] sleep horizontally across the bed.

The next picture is from the first Friday that I was there. Clearly I didn't do much in the way of adventure-having for the first 5 days of the trip. Friday night, we went into Boston for the first time and walked around Quincy Market and had dinner. All the lights in the trees were really pretty and the street performers were actually pretty funny!

Dillon came to visit over the weekend that I was there! He didn't get out of work until 9 at night on Friday, so he didn't get to the hotel until about 3am Saturday morning. I guess he had to call my cell phone a few times [even though it was set to obnoxiously loud] for me to wake up and come let him in the hotel!

We both love going to the zoo, so we decided Saturday we would spend some of the day at the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston. It was a nice day outside and the zoo wasn't too busy!

We saw this peacock up-close and personal, and right before we walked away he ruffled up all his feathers! It was awesome.

The Franklin Park Zoo has an area called "Zoorassic Park" that you can pay a little extra to walk through. It has a bunch of animatronic dinosaurs that are really life-like! It was actually pretty suspenseful not knowing when/if a dinosaur was going to make noise or shoot water at you. I can imagine at night it is actually pretty scary!

Dillon is an anthropology major with interests in primatology and forensic anthropology, so it's no surprise that he was most excited to see the gorillas. They were all just hanging out in the sun enjoying the nice day.

 I kind of go back and forth on which zoo animal is my favorite, but I really love elephants and giraffes. There weren't any elephants at the Franklin Park Zoo, so I had to get a picture with a giraffe!

After the zoo, we drove further into downtown Boston and found a parking spot in a WAY overpriced parking garage. We walked a little ways away from the parking garage to look at the harbor. It was FULL of boats! 

After lunch, we decided to skip the aquarium that we had originally planned on checking out and just walked around Boston instead! We saw lots of really tall buildings, cool architecture, beautiful parks and walkways, cobblestone streets, Quincy Market, fountains, and interesting people. It was a great afternoon!

 Sunday morning, we decided to take a trip into Cambridge and go to the Harvard Museum of Natural History and the Peabody Museum of Archeology.

I snapped a picture of this sign at the museum. I liked it!

I was sad that Dillon had to leave on Monday morning, but at least the sunset on Monday night from the hotel room was beautiful!

Tuesday night, I went to Fenway Park for a Red Sox/White Sox game. They were great seats and it was awesome being in such an old ballpark! I know my brother and Dillon were both jealous that I had made it to Fenway before them. Even though I am a Yankees fan [if you couldn't tell by my dog named Jeter], I could still appreciate the awesomeness of Fenway!

The best sight of all, though, was this face waiting for me when I walked through the door on Friday after being gone for almost two weeks. I missed him so so so much!

Dillon was working when I got home (boo!), but I found these waiting for me on the coffee table. What a sweet guy! :)

Well, that's about it! I would love to visit Boston again and have more time to roam around and see the sights, but I am pretty happy with all I got to see and do during a work trip! Hope you all weren't too bored as I re-lived my fun little Boston "vacation"! Until next time :)

"Don't you EVER leave me for 2 weeks again! Do you hear me?"