I am a Honey Bee

All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel

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Brimfield: From Balls Jars to Raspberry Lime Rickeys

Emily and I went to Brimfield again this year becuase we loved the experieince last year so much. It’s just a massive conacopia of crap. Some good, so bad, all with a pretty funny story. Here goes…

(L) A 1800’s ‘casket’ used in transporting the dearly departed to furneral homes. They advertised that this would make for a great hallow decoration. (R) Pretty amazing magnifying glasses that this man makes with handles from old knives.

(L) A small Pyrex dish for $3. I should have gotten it! (R) A thread spool organizer could be yours for $500+

Possibly the cutest thing all day. This hutch had storage for flour and sugar. The flour is on the left with the built in sifter. The cabinets had storage and some cooking information/instructions. $1600

Raspberry Lime Rickey $3 in process and in consumption

(L) A quick self portrait (R) A coral lamp

(L) Emily trying out a new hobby? Testing out a toy gun (R) Rabbits and other animals. I’m particularly sure what they are from. $40
Check out Emily’s Flickr album to see pics of a corpse bride, a very flexible mannequin, and an old mustang.


Weekend Recap

I would have to say this weekend was a sucess. I had a great time with pricer before he left for another week. Plus I got do a bunch of fun things.

Starting with Friday night… We originally talked about going to see The American but the movie times didn’t work for is since we planned on making calzones for dinner. (I got up early on Friday morning to make the dough. It was the first time ever and I’ll be doing it again and again now. I could see the difference from the store bought kinds.) So we stayed in to have calzones and watch Date Night. I cracked up throughout the whole movie.

Then we took a walk into Coolidge Corner for frozen yogurt. I got my usual, mango/plain swirl with blackberries, kiwi, starwberries, but this time I got some mango too. Price got banana/chocolate swirl with some chocolate toppings.

On Saturday morning I went to Brimfield with Emily. This was our second time so we knew what to look out for, and yet this were things that still shocked us. I went to get a brouch for Halloween, Pyrex, and blue ball jars. It was a successful trip there!

  

I took a nap before Price and I met a new BAC masters student for dinner to give him some pointers on surviving that school, like who are the important people to know, time management, and who are the people you’ll see by the BAC, like Louie.

Price and I watched NASCAR when we got home.

Sunday was much more relaxed with ‘sleeping in’ until 9:30, reading the paper and watching the news and food network. We then headed out to try a sandwich place before seeing the noon showing of The American. Both the sandwich place and the movie were great.

 

Then a trip to Home Depot and Target, a nap, and Price was gone again. 🙁

  

Chaos

My life is surrounded by chaos right now. Absolute chaos- which is why blogging has been shoved aside right now. I just couldn’t focus enough to sit down in this mess.

Our apartment is finally getting fixed from the flood… 5 months and 3 weeks later. Well, just about everything had to be moved away from the walls so the guy could work. Don’t get me wrong, I love that is is getting fixed but I forgot that this has to happen for the work to get done. So everything is displaced- including the rabbits, who are now set up in the kitchen.

Most of all I’m thankful that our landlords said that we could have the apartment painted the colors we picked. So the next pictures of this place will have nice Martha Stewart colors up on the walls. I can’t wait to get rid of that dark purple wall. Stay tuned…

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday Mom!!!!

Okay so this photo is from last year but I love it. Plus I was stupid and forgot to take photos while we were out at dinner. So I only have a few shots from when we were doing presents. I’m lame. But, again, I love this photo. This was from my Mom’s big 50th birthday bash. So that should count!

Have a fantastic year full of laughter, great memories, quite moments, strong drinks, books you can’t put down, beautiful sunsets, sloppy dog kisses, great food, lots of knitting, clear blue skies, brightly colored scrubs, dogs that sleep in, time to relax, and whatever else you can imagine!!!! I love you!!!!

Summertime Zucchini Bread with Honey Butter

Zucchini Bread with Honey Butter is going to be a summertime staple that you will love to make for yourself and for everyone you met. Spread the love! And the Honey Butter!

Post Contains Affiliate Links. Read my full disclosure HERE

Yesterday was the unofficial end of summer and it makes me so sad!

Summer is my favorite season, because I love the long days, hot afternoon sun, and fresh summer product. So I am bummed, but at least I have a ton of zucchinis now.

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lesson learned

If you bring in photos of the hair color you really, truely want… get it.  Don’t back down. The hair stylist has the right to explain how to get that AND what else she thinks would look good. But remember that you are the client and you should get what you want.

I learned a very valuable lesson last night. As much as I can be the bossy bitch who gets what she wants, I am also the person who will cave easily. So, while I have a great cut and color, it is not at all the color that I wanted. Must go back tonight and be a little brave and explain that I am really not happy.

Wish me luck. {please}

To be continued….

Paint Chips and a Bee

I think this Sherwin Williams commercial is done beautifully. I absolutely love it.

I love the comemrical for how well it is executed. The colors are vibrant. The way the flowers are created is creative. And of course I love the bee in there.

I wish the song was something that you could purchase. Too bad.

50 pounds of tomatoes

I think I have my mojo back. At least I did this weekend. Price and I got up early and went to Haymarket to get tomatoes for sauce and veggies for the buns. I knew I wanted to make a lot of sauce and I wanted it fresh so we went to Haymarket to get a lot of tomatoes. Well a lot is an understatement. I did not feel like getting bags of tomatoes by picking out each tomato, so we went to area where they have a boxes of tomatoes. Well did you know that they are 25 pounds each? I did not, but that did not stop my from swallowing my fear and buying 2 tomato varieties. 25 +25 = 50 pounds!

So we dropped it off and I ended back out to the store to the quart size Ball jars, meat for meatballs, and some other stuff. Once I was back home I started cutting, and cutting, and cutting. It seemed like it was never ending but was relaxing and worth it. My feet were sore by the end of the day from standing at the stove for hours on end but I love that kinda of pain. Like working out at the gym and being sore later on.

Well all of these tomatoes yielded about 22/23 quarts of marinara sauce. Even though I just bought a pot for this I had to use another because we had soo much! I had bought a 20 quart stainless steel pot last weekend and it was put though a very food first test. It passed with flying colors since nothing burned, it held heat evenly, it held heat well, and it was easy to clean. Loved it.

Besides the marinara sauce Price and I made meatballs using 4 pounds of meat (beef and pork), onion, parsley, breadcrumbs, cheese, 5 eggs, crushed red pepper, salt, and pepper. I also used a package of hot and sweet Italian Sausage. Since you can’t put meat into sauce and can it (well maybe you can, I just head you can’t so I am not about to question it) we divided the sauce up for canning and freezing. I froze the meatballs that we will eat with the jarred sauce.

Every time we heard a lid pop we counted down with the # remaining that needed to pop and we would then cheer. I think canning is going to turn into a new addiction. I love how the process, the popping, and how I have all that sauce and I still have room in my freezer. I now have 14 happy quarts sitting in my cabinets.

I’m hoping this productivity carries over into the week since I have scrapbooking to do and clean up and an office to rearrange.

Stalled

I have been feeling stalled lately. I have lost my motivation for just about anything. Our sofa, the Cos, is my friend. I just spend my nights lounging and watching movies. I try to get motivated but nothing is really grabbing my attention. I tell myself that life would be easier if I just did all the laundry and then actually folded it and put it away instead of leaving it in the dryer/on sofa/in wash baskets. It def would make getting dressed in the morning faster. I tell myself that but I still have not touched the piles that keep getting higher.

It’s those types of things that are falling behind in my life. I have like 6 blog posts started, 8 yelp reviews, a few scrapbooking pages, etc. I have always been a person to start something and not finish it but it has gotten bad this summer. This summer of freedom. The summer of no classes, no portfolios, and no registration. You would think I would love the free time but it is such a weird experience I am having trouble figuring out time management. Saying that is just weird. I have been so good at juggling work, school, homework, and lack of sleep for years that not having that extreme pressure has me completely confused.

The biggest issue is that I am a weekend person. I am a weekend warrior. It is when I catch up on cleaning, laundry, being crafty, shopping, meal prep, etc. With the last few weekends away I have thrown my typical schedule upside down. Dont get me wrong, I love my weekends away but it really wrecks my ‘schedule’.

I’m really hoping that I can regroup this weekend and get out of this rut. So far I have planned…

finish up some blog posts and schedule them to post
finish my yelp drafts and do a few more reviews
3 scrapbooking pages
making marinara sauce (about 18 qts) and canning it
begin the process of purging the office  
finish the cube project

we shall see how everything turns out…

 Happy Friday!!!

Sketchbook 2: Day 6

I always joke that I am the planner and Price is the dreamer. It’s not to say that Price does not plan and I dont dream but most of our conversations are steered that I plan and he dreams. So I say that I am a wisher. My arguement is that my wishes come and go quickly. I wish I had a glass a milk. I wish I had a new pair of boots. I wish I could take a nap. I wish we could move right NOW. Well that last one is not going away until we do. But the point is that I dont invest much time in my wishes. Price is dreaming for a jeep so he spends time online looking at old ones in order to be 100% prepared if the day comes that he can get one. Totally cute.

The layout is based on the Day 6 sketch from the Sketchbook 2 class I have been taking. I focused on the components in the sketch, rahter than where they were. I looked at the qty of things and carried that into my layout.

“I am a planner. I am not a dreamer. But I love to wish. I guess there is no real diffference but I’m a planner so that holds me back somewhat. A dream has investment but my wisher is instants. Just a thought.

My thought when this photo was taken was thatwe could stay in Maine longer. My self portrait captures my relaxing moment under the tree in the yard. I wish I could lay there looking that the wind low the leaves around. In the end I jsut took a little nap on the plaid blanket. Maybe I dreamed in the end…”