Chocolate Chip Cookies

According to Twitter, it's Cookie Week;  in honor of the occasion, I'm sharing my favorite cookie recipe in the whole world. It's Johnny's recipe, and it makes the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever had. Try them!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 2 and 1/8 c. flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 12 tbsp. melted butter, cooled
• 1 c. brown sugar
• 1/2 c. granulated sugar
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1-2 c. chocolate chips

Mix the flour, salt, and baking soda in a bowl. Set aside. Mix brown sugar, granulated sugar, and butter together. Add egg, yolk, and vanilla. Mix until smooth. Add previously mixed dry ingredients. Blend together until smooth, then add chocolate chips. Mix well, then divide into ~24 equal balls and bake at 325 degrees F for 15-18 minutes. 

Back in Action!

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving! I had a marvelous time in Texas, meeting Johnny's extended family and eating delicious food. Johnny's parents were so gracious and pleasant and his family was interesting and extremely nice. There were a few moments where I wasn't sure what to say or do- like when his grandfather, frustrated with the potato peeler, exclaimed "damn liberal potatoes!" or when his young cousin asked "are you my cousin now?"- but overall, the experience was a very positive one.

While in Texas, we were so busy there wasn't much of a chance to do anything! Johnny left his Six Flags season pass at home and the only things we managed to do were see the Ice exhibit at the Gaylord Texan and catch a late showing of Morning Glory at the movies. (This movie was terrible, by the way.) The Ice exhibit featured the whole cast of Peanuts characters carved from ice- specifically, it was scenes from A Charlie Brown Christmas. I'll post pictures tomorrow- tonight I'm still recovering from a very long week!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope you're able to enjoy this holiday and reflect upon the things in life you're thankful for. Here's my list:

• My wonderful friends! Even though most of them are miles and miles away, I know they're just a phone call, text, or tweet away. I'm thankful they're in my life.
• Johnny- I can always count on him to be funny, supportive, excitable, and reliable. Sometimes I don't know what I'd do without him. 
• My job. Being a concierge isn't very glamorous, but I am thankful to have any job in this dreadful economy. 
• The opportunity to play polo! Horses have always been my passion and I am extremely thankful I've been able to keep riding them throughout my life. I'm so happy to have found polo here in Tulsa and even more grateful to have started with a great club in Wichita. 
• My cats. It might seem silly to be thankful for two small, ridiculous animals like Bear and Woody, but they certainly bring me happiness and comfort.

There are countless intangible things I'm thankful for too, but I don't want to spoil anyone's Turkey Day by going on and on and on. Have a wonderful holiday!  

Texas!

I am so excited- Johnny and I leave for Texas tomorrow! We'll be gone Tuesday-Saturday and are planning to spend time with his immediate and extended family. I'm looking forward to meeting them; his parents are lovely people and I imagine his aunts, cousins, and grandparents to be just as nice.

While we're in Texas, we're planning on stopping by the botanical gardens, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Kimbell Art Museum and Six Flags. I'm also excited to eat puffy tacos at Caro's (and maybe buy some salsa to take home!). We might take in the Thanksgiving Day parade too; there's so much to do! I'll be sure to take loads of pictures (with my new and improved camera app) and write all about my adventures.

Skinny Pumpkin Muffins

I am a sucker for muffins- I think they're the most convenient, delicious breakfast food ever invented! I came across a recipe in Tulsa World a few weeks ago for Skinny Pumpkin muffins and have been meaning to bake them ever since. I finally got around to it last night and couldn't be more pleased with the results!

Skinny Pumpkin Muffins
recipe by Dorie Greenspan

• 2 c. all purpose flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 3/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 c. brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 c. pumpkin puree
• 1/4 c. milk

DIRECTIONS

Whisk the flour, baking powder, spices, and salt. Set aside. Fit a regular muffin pan with liners. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Beat the butter until creamy, then beat in the sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Gently fold in the pumpkin puree and the milk. Add the flour mixture and blend into batter.

Divide the batter among the 12 muffin cups. Bake until muffins are puffed and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. 

NUTRITION FACTS

Makes 12 servings. Per muffin: 200 calories, 27g carbs, 4g protein, 55 mg cholesterol, 1g fiber, 9g fat. 

Giveaway Roundup!

It seems like there have been a ton of giveaways popping up lately on many of the blogs I read! In case you missed any, here's a quick list:

• Preppy Clothes Giveaway: clothiers Tucker Blair, Kiel James Patrick, and Southern Proper have joined together to give one lucky prep $1,200 of gear, in the form of a $400 gift card to each retailer! How fabulous!
• Privileged Housewarming Party: the ever-gracious Lisa of Privileged is hosting present-filled festivities to celebrate her blog's new home at amidprivilege.com. The several giveaways include prizes from Preppy Princess, CSN, and Shabby Apple- tres chic!
• Nautical by Nature Anniversary Giveaways: Kate at NBN is celebrating 3 years of blogging by having a week full of giveaways! You can win gear from Tipsy Skipper, Outer Banks Trading Group, Marley Lilly, Angela Moore, and Preppy Princess. Fingers crossed!
• Southern Hospitality $100 Giveaway: Rhoda of Southern Hospitality is hosting a V8/BlogHer sponsored giveaway for a $100 Visa giftcard! How fantastic is that? Pop on over to SH to read Rhoda's review of the new V8 V-Fusion + Tea and enter!

Christmas List, Part 2

Since I've shared some items that are on my list to give, I thought I'd share some items that I'd like to receive this year!

Monogrammed earrings from The Pink Monogram. I have been searching for a pair of earrings to wear every day- the kind that match everything, don't look ridiculous, and aren't attention-getting. I think these small, tastefully monogrammed beauties are just what I'm looking for!

Boat & Tote bag from LL Bean. I really need a tote bag for carrying around all of the miscellaneous stuff I take to work, to the gym, and to polo practice. I love the Regatta Blue color!

Cozy socks from Old Navy. I cannot tell you how much I need some warm, fuzzy socks! My feet freeze after  I take off my Ugg-boot-looking slippers and regular socks just don't cut it at night. 

Rope Whale notecards from Vineyard Vines. This stationary is adorable, enough said.

What do you want for Christmas this year?

Christmas List

It's getting to be the time of year when I seriously start thinking about Christmas. Namely, what to get everyone on my list, which has gotten quite long in recent years! My close friends are easy to shop for; my extended family is more difficult. Here are some lovely things I've found so far:

Soaps from Savor

Savor is one of my very favorite Etsy shops! They sell all sorts of handmade bath products, but their soaps are absolutely divine. This two-soap gift set also includes a handmade soap dish, and I think it's going to be great for my hard-to-shop for aunt. As a bonus, you get to choose which soaps to include! Perfect!

Brocade zipper bags at Pier 1

These little brocade zipper bags are adorable. Best of all, they can be filled with mini-gifts tailored to the recipient. My nieces might just receive these bags packed with nail polish, emery boards, lip gloss, etc. 

Luggage tag from A Touch of Whimsy

Most of my close friends are scattered all over the country- Michigan, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee- but they all travel regularly, whether it's home to visit family and friends or to the vacation home to summer. These bright, cheery luggage tags are going to be a hit, I can feel it!

Hot sauce set from Gourmet Mike's

Several gentlemen in my life are big fans of grilling and big fans of hot sauce. My dear friend Mikey and crazy cousin Andy might be recipients of a hot sauce set. 

What are you giving for Christmas this year?

Crafts

It's my day off, and you know what that means! Spending all day snuggling Bear and surfing the web. With Christmas just around the corner, I've been spending a lot of time on www.marthastewart.com in an effort to find gifts I can make for my friends and family. I'm happy to report that I've found some amazing projects!

Grosgrain Bracelets

These adorable bracelets are ridiculously easy and completely perfect for my trendy friends. I am definitely going to make a few for myself! I've already started searching for the perfect ribbon.

Bath Fizzies

These look just like colored sugar cubes, don't they? I think they look gorgeous in these jars, and plan on making several batches for my aunts, cousins, and BFFs. 

All Purpose Spice Rub

Sometimes, I think people don't want to cook because they're not inspired! Maybe by gifting this rub, which includes paprika, oregano, thyme, and other spices, I can encourage someone to get cooking. 

I also found a ton of glitter crafts, but I'm not sure if Johnny will be pleased with me making a sparkly mess on the dining table!

Chocomize!

I recently purchased a Groupon for Chocomize, a site that allows you to customize specialty chocolate bars. You can put practically anything in them, from strawberry Gushers to bacon to 23-karat gold flakes! The Groupon is for $20 worth of chocolate, so Johnny and I have been perusing the site all evening trying to decide what we're going to order! The site offers some 'favorites'- popular flavor combinations- that sound delicious as well as some that sound downright nasty. For example, the Hawaiian Sunset bar includes milk chocolate with macadamia nuts, 23-karat gold flakes, diced pineapple, and coconut flakes- yum! The Spicy Special bar, which consists of milk chocolate embedded with black peppercorns, mini chipotles, and cayenne pepper, sounds far less delicious. I think I might go with a simple milk chocolate bar with walnuts and dried raspberries- I'm easy to please, haha! What would you get from Chocomize?

Art Crawl

I am so excited for tonight! Johnny and I are heading to Tulsa for the monthly First Friday Art Crawl. First Fridays are popular all over and although I've attended Wichita's, Tulsa is new for me. If you're not familiar with the concept, it's exactly what it sounds like: people meet up and mingle while touring local art galleries. In Tulsa, it takes place in the gorgeous Brady Arts District downtown. I'm especially looking forward to the glassblowing demonstration at Tulsa Glassblowing Studio, and of course, food and drinks at all of the restaurants and bars along the way. Now, if I could just decide what to wear...

Blog Obsessions

As you can side by the long list to the left of this post, I read a lot of blogs. I love finding out what people (most of them strangers) do day to day, what kind of interesting things happen in their lives, where they recommend finding super-cute outfits. I've found a few new obsessions over the last couple of weeks:

• Total Frat Move
  An ever-growing list of things that are totally greek, this site never gets old. I was a sorority girl in college, and so many posts ring true (many of them in the worst possible way) that I could read this all day. (I often do at work, haha!)
• Sorostitute Stories
  In the same vein as TFM, Sorostitute Stories offers a look into collegiate sorority culture. Offering fashion tips, boy advice, and general observations on the greek system, SS is amazing and hilarious in every way. 
• Reasoning With Vampires
  I managed to make it through the first novel of the Twilight books without too many missing brain cells and without any desire to finish the series. RWV perfectly dismantles the books' awful writing with humor and grammatical edits.
• Hatecation
  Whenever I start thinking about how much I want to take a vacation and how I usually lack the funds necessary to do so, I head over to Hatecation. Filled with stories and pictures of vacations gone awry, it makes me feel less disappointed about staying home.

Music

Sometimes, I ask for really boring things for gift-giving occasions. This year's birthday was one of those times, as I desperately needed a fairly large USB drive to move my digital music collection off my laptop. My mother was kind enough to get me a 32-gigabyte USB drive and I've spent the morning moving music around. (My laptop is on its last leg and I definitely don't want to lose any of the music I've spent so much money on to an unexpected crash!) When I opened up the drive's package, I found a coupon for 50 free song downloads from emusic.com! I was so excited; I have been wanting to download a slew of songs I bookmarked on Pandora. Here's a sample of some of the music I recently added to my collection:

• Handsome Boy Modeling School- "Breakdown"
  

  
  

• Jem- "They"
  

  
  

• Vampire Weekend- "Oxford Comma"
  

  
  

• The Avett Brothers- "Nothing Short of Thankful"
  

  
  

• Sea Wolf- "O Maria!"
  

  
  

Shopping

I'll admit that I am a total bargain hunter. I am loath to pay full price for anything (horsey things are the general exception). As a result, I am signed up for various discount sites like Rue LaLa & Gilt Groupe and a plethora of store-specific mailing lists (J. Crew, Gap, etc.). All of these are forwarded to my coupon-specific email address so I don't have to see them on my phone (unless I want to) or in my regular inbox. It's perfect.

Quite possibly the best thing about these mailing lists is the birthday-related deals. I had no idea just how good they are until this year! Gap, Old Navy, J.Crew, and Banana Republic all sent me special coupons to use. I decided to spend a little birthday money on some new stuff from Old Navy- their jeans fit me well and their inexpensive tops are perfect for when you want something trendy, but don't want to drop serious money on a piece that will go out of style in a year or two. (I know, I know, one shouldn't buy trendy items, one should buy staples, but sometimes it's fun to embrace a trend!) With a 20% off coupon code in hand, I found a few good deals online.

The Sweetheart skinny jeans

I decided on these skinny jeans first. I like the wash, I like the rise, and after reading reviews, I think I'll like the way they fit. I am nervous about owning skinnies, but I hope these will look good and turn into favorites! (I also think they'll look great will the cute flats and slew of tops I got at Loft this weekend.)

Mohair blend sweater

The reviews on this sweater were iffy- some people thought the arms were too short or the knit was too flimsy, but I think it might be exactly what I'm looking for. I am in love with dark gray to begin with and I think a really lightweight cardi will be perfect for wearing to Thanksgiving at Johnny's parents'. I mean, doesn't it always get stiflingly hot when there are large groups of people in small rooms? As for the arms, my arms are on the short side, so that might be fine, but if the sweater is more of a 3/4 length thing, I can embrace that too. Perhaps pairing this with some dark jeans and a bright top underneath will look good!

I also bought a Christmas present for BFF Greer, but on the off chance she reads this (although she insists she never reads blogs), I won't post any info on it. I think she'll like it though! 

So ends the shopping spree. Back to doing boring stuff with money, like paying my student loans and cell phone bill!