By MBPDLPayday Loans

Category: Domestic DemiGoddess

Dec 29

{2011}

I can honestly say that I will always be in love with 2010.

I’m getting married in 2011, and going back to school and hopefully starting to forge a career path that is fulfilling and engaging and satisfying… and I still think 2011 is going to have a hard time topping 2010. 2010 was the year I started to take my writing seriously enough for others to take it seriously, too. And I got engaged, and James and I took the first big steps toward being more than a couple… toward being a family.

And I successfully hosted my first “Crew Christmas”, made my first Christmas Dinner with only small injuries, and I survived a suburban snow-in in the last yawning week of the year. So there’s that. And here are photos!

Crew Christmas:

{The Crew’s All Here}
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{Rich & Kallie being adorable!}
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{Rich & Kallie’s Hands, also being adorable.}
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{Drew & Ally. We have really adorable friends.}
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Christmas Christmas:

{The Whole Family! Please excuse how exhausted I clearly look.}
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{The Fingertip Casualty – taken by the evil Mandolin. I did you the favor of replacing the skin flap before snapping the photo.}
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{Moose: “OMG crazy lady, no more photos!”}
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{Sleepy, after the long day.} I don’t know why I love this photo so much. I just really, really do.
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Snow Day!:

{Elephant snuggles in as the snow keeps falling.}
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{Moose also burrows down for a long winter’s nap.}
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{It snowed for 14 hours, and we woke up to this…}
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{That’s James’ car in the front. That’s Jen’s car in the back. That’s 3-4 feet all around them both.}
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{Please forgive my bathrobe. And my face. Look! 2.5 FEET at the garage door! FEET!}
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And now, for my next trick, I shall keep quiet until 2011. :) Try not to miss me too much until then, OK?

-MM.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, Family Shackles, The Moxie Chronicles., The Ugly Truth, True Life: I'm Surviving Suburbia, Warm Fuzzies

Dec 02

{Pie!}

This past Thanksgiving {last week}… I was given the honor of making the Pumpkin Pie. There are few things in life I get more excited about than Pumpkin Pie. It’s a little inappropriate, if we want to get very honest about it.

The problem with Pumpkin Pie {other than it being sadly missing 11 months out of the year} – is that there are times when there just simply is not enough crust. When I found these adorable pie-crust leaf-punches from Williams Sonoma, my heart swooned and I fell in love. What a classy solution to the pie vs. filling ratio!

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They’re simple to use and look at that! They’re on sale! This is what my pie turned out lookin’ like. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.

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-MM.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, The Moxie Chronicles., True Life: I'm Surviving Suburbia

Oct 07

Family Recipe Family Tree

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Fancy Response Paper {Kate’s Paperie} |  Response Envelopes {Kate’s Paperie} | And, they don’t seem to sell the exact cards I used for the explanatory note, but if I could start all over again, I’d use {these} and {these}, also from {Kate’s Paperie}.

xo -MM.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, Family Shackles, Gettin' Hitched, My People, The Moxie Chronicles., True Life: I'm Surviving Suburbia

Oct 05

Healthier Eatin’

We’re trying something new over here. I’m stepping away, admirably, from my Butter Obsession.

My Irish grandmother is rolling over in her grave somewhere – it’s the first ingredient I realized I loved. I might have been five years old, and Papa Murphy {Dad’s Dad} gave be Italian bread, toasted, with butter. Now, I’ve always loved my carbs, but the salty butter that my Mimi spread across the toast was all I showed interest in licking off the intended breakfast. Mmmm… butter. You taste like home.

That said, James is trying to svelte-up before we walk down the aisle, and I’ve agreed to Change My Buttery Ways and start making him healthier meals, specifically for lunch. Where I’d normally use 5-8 Tablespoons of butter in the following recipe, I scaled way back, to 3. {It tastes just as delicious}.

As we embark on this new adventure– I’ll be chronicling the journey here. It should be super exciting, as long as we don’t die of starvation and/or eat the kittens along the way. Up first, James’ lunch for the next couple days: Lemon Pepper Garlic Chicken Cutlet AWESOMENESS.

Bon Apetit!

-MM.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, Gettin' Hitched, The Moxie Chronicles., True Life: I'm Surviving Suburbia

Oct 02

Monsters Under My Desk.

This week has been fraught with yet another series of brain-jellying migraines. I die, I die. (Actually, I drug up, nap and avoid computer screens.)

The cats have been very helpful in making sure that something fuzzy is snuggling me at all times, though, so there’s that. In homage to my little monsters– and because the pressure behind my left eyeball is threatening to actually pop the eye out my face– a look at the snuggle-buddies when they were a little littler.

-MM.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, The Moxie Chronicles., The Ugly Truth, Warm Fuzzies

Sep 28

Recipe Rollout.

This past weekend I got back into the kitchen and did some serious cooking. Then I went out to a bar and did some serious drinking. I find that it’s best to do it in that order, lest the cooking interfere with the drinking. It’s important to fully focus on things like drinking.

But. Being back in the kitchen felt amazing, and it’s a great precursor to a project I’m rolling out this week. So. Brace yourself for more recipes, including that of my Epic Lasagna. The lasagna that consumed 72 hours of my life this weekend.

Epic. Lasagna.

-MM.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, Family Shackles, Gettin' Hitched

Sep 23

Recipe for Love

Next week, I’ll be debuting a new project that is going to be a Moxie Missives exclusive. This weekend, we’re hosting an Engagement Party for James’ family, which means Saturday morning I’ll be knee-deep in lasagna and baked apples.

So. {Here’s} a teaser for what’s coming down the tube and we’ll meet back here on Tuesday.

Courtesy of Martha Stewart

-MM.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, Family Shackles, Gettin' Hitched, Mine All Mine, My People, The Moxie Chronicles., True Life: I'm Surviving Suburbia

Sep 21

Ultimate Lasagne

I’ve looked high and low for a good Lasagne recipe– one that doesn’t leave a weird tomato sauce puddle at the bottom of the pan. Now, I’m mentally incapable of simply reading a recipe from a page and following it step by step. That’s not how I learned to cook.

I learned to cook when I was just barely big enough to see over Mimi’s counter. I’d stand on my tippy-toes, nose pressed into the Formica, my eyes greedily watching my grandmother’s weathered hands mix things into her magical bowls. When I say magical, what I mean is that my Mimi could take any sort of unappealing ingredient– like flour, of all unholy, yucky-tasting things– and turn it into something so delicious, you could hardly remember disliking it in the first place, like fresh, crackling bread. She always told me to cook by feel. Take these ingredients, she’d say, pushing sugar, butter, eggs and flour toward my clapping little palms. Mix them together until they look like cookie dough. Then bake them until they look like cookies.

That’s how I do things in my neck of the Kitchen. Mix it until it looks like food, smells like love, and tastes like little bits of heaven. Serve warm, with a side of Comfort. I treat Cookbooks like text books– great reference materials with a wealth of knowledge, but the truly great revelations come from taking theory and extrapolating on it, not sticking tightly to it.

All this said, the best Lasagne recipe I’ve found is by Tyler Florence: Tyler’s Ultimate Lasagne. Of course, I do enough things different to admit that my lasagne tastes nothing like his, and his would taste nothing like mine. But all the major concepts I’ll be following this week as I cook for 40 of my Future-Relatives-In-Law are here, and we all know those aren’t small stakes we’re talking about here.

You can find the recipe {here}. And, just because he’s so adorable– and so efficient and knowledgeable– I’ve also embedded the video below for your viewing delight!

Bon apetit!

-MM.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, Gettin' Hitched, The Moxie Chronicles.

Sep 19

Lazy Weekend.

It’s been a lazy weekend over here in the Suburbs. Mostly because I’ve been having a really hard time with my sinuses and the season change and not writhing around on the floor, clawing my nasal cavities out and begging for death.

On a happier note, we’re heading over to CostCo today, and it’ll be my first venture into a wholesale store since moving out to the ‘Burbs. I’m getting everything ready for The Long Island Engagement Party, set to take place next Saturday. It’s mostly for James’ family, and it’ll give my parents a chance to meet everyone.

I’m cooking. The menu is very Italian, with high hopes for this little Irish girl. We’re bulking up in the foodstuffs we’ll need today, so I have a whole week to cook and simmer and bake and sear and stress out. :)

In the meantime, please check out the lovely Amy over at ABCD Designs. She’s not only exceedingly pretty, she’s a fantastically talented interior designer, blogger and Twitterer. :)

Photo via Swoon Over It Photography, available via ABCDDesign.com

-MM.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, Gettin' Hitched, The Moxie Chronicles., True Life: I'm Surviving Suburbia

Sep 09

Moose vs. The Window

One of the things the cats refuse to get over is the glorious, glorious abundance of windows in this house. Moose especially, with his agility and general state of psychosis, finds these revolutionary contraptions to be particularly captivating. His only nemesis is a Closed Window, which he has a harder time sitting in, and a much tougher time harassing squirrels through.

That is, until tonight! Tonight, Moose’s real nemesis presented itself. A villain so evil, it took all Moose’s concentration and poise to stand against it. And through it. And then behind it. And then, after a little nibble on it, falling from it. Ladies and gents: The Blinds.

The Monsters in Action

-MM.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, The Moxie Chronicles., True Life: I'm Surviving Suburbia

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