Polaroids + Window Frame

Feb 28, 2012

I've never once mentioned to Josh that I was interested in buying a Diana style camera, and turns out he knows me better than I think.
For Valentine's Day he got me something better: a Polaroid Land camera

It takes Diana style pics, but prints them instantly!

Finding film for it was a challenge, but last weekend we bought 5 packs of film and got busy!
. . . or at least got busy trying.

We went through about 3 packs before we finally got the hang of things and actually got some good shots!


Here are some of my favorites: 

These aren't polaroids, these are just snapshots from my phone while we were having our little polaroid photoshoot



Anyways, a while back when Ellie and I went antique shopping, I found this old window and I've been trying my hardest to figure out something to do with it.
 (Not really, it's just been chillin in the back of my car for a few weeks, but isn't it great???)


So I picked out a few of my favorite polaroids . . .

. . . and ever so neatly arranged them on the window.

Voila!

I've been tagged!

Feb 27, 2012

Sweet Jenn at Passenger Seat Perspectives tagged me in a post last week, and now it's my turn to respond:


The rules:
1. You must post the rules.
2. Post eleven facts about yourself on the blog post.
3. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post,
and then create eleven new questions to the people you've tagged.
4. Tag eleven people and link them on your post.
5. Let them know you've tagged them!

11 random facts about myself:
1) I don’t own a straightening iron.
2) I dry my hair mayyyybe 5 times a year.
3) I’ve never seen ET, Jaws, or Star Wars. Josh thinks that is weird, I'm ok with it.
4) I have been to 15 Dave Matthews Band concerts (don’t judge me, judge Josh instead, he has been to 30)
5) I hate ketchup with a passion. A fiery passion. I gag if it comes near me.
6) I have met a two time grammy winner: Mr Justin Vernon of Bon Iver.
(Deer in headlights?)

7) I’m not a fan of vegetables. Mostly green ones. Josh gets a lot of credit for culturing me in the ways of food: since we have been dating I have tried (and loved) mushrooms, onions, pickles, hummus, and soybeans.
8) This weekend I bought my first tube of lipstick in 6 years. I’ve always been a chapstick/lip gloss kinda person.

9) Gavin Degraw has called me three times. I’m so ashamed. I met him at a concert manyyy years ago and asked him if he was single. He got my number, and then would randomly call me when he was “in the area” aka Louisiana or Texas, to see if I was coming to shows. For some reason, I never did go to those shows. The first time he called I thought it was my friend tricking me and I said some very inappropriate words to him. I feel uncomfortable even typing this.
10) My mom was on the Rosie O’Donnell show and caught a koosh ball that she threw into the crowd.
I just laughed out loud.
Blast. From. The. Past.
11) My hometown is being featured on a reality tv show that will remain nameless right now.

Jenn's questions for me:
1. If you could choose one clothing store to shop at for the rest of your life (money is no object), which would it be and why?
Madewell.
Even though I hardly ever get to go shopping (partly by choice) if I could go to just one store forever it would definitely be Madewell. I would say I have a very very very casual, plain style and they have the most perfect plain clothes ever.

2. If you were a Frappuccino, what flavor would you be and why? (you can make one up!)
Ever since I found a list of starbucks secret menu items, I’ve always wanted to try the cake batter Frap (but I’m too scared to ask for it!) I blogged about secret menus once upon a time.

3. What is one value or life lesson that you want to pass on to your kids?
My dad has always made a point to tell me that happiness is a choice. Attitude is truly everything, and you are only as happy as you make up your mind to be. Having a positive or a negative outlook day to day can really make a difference in your life.

4. If you were a superhero, what would your power be?
To fly.
Flying (in planes) these days is so darn expensive and complicated. I just want an easy way to get from here to there.

5. Why do you blog?
I’ve always been a huge documenter. I take way too many pictures, and my memory is terrible so I like to have tangible items to help me remember great experiences. When I was going up, I was a huge scrapbooker, so to me blogging is somewhat like a “digital scrapbook”.

6. What's something on your bucket list?
conquering THIS list of 50 of the world’s best breakfasts.
Josh and I are good breakfasters.

7. Who is someone you admire?
At the moment, probably Josh. He has type 1 diabetes, and for as long as we have dated I have never ever heard him complain about it one single time. (Except for when his blood sugar gets low and he complains about having to eat more sugar. Sucks, huh?) He has to stick himself with a needle multiple times a day, and pay attention to the carb count for every single thing he puts in his mouth, and I seriously don't know how he dos it.

8. Which pair of shoes would you wear every day if you could?
These bad boys from Italy. They were my only splurge of the trip (real Italian leather) and I’m obsessed with them. I often think about what I would grab if there was a fire, and I think those boots would make the cut.

9. Where would your dream home be located?
Seattle, Breckenridge, or Charlottesville, VA . . . tough call.

10. What is your favorite feature in a blog?
I love how some blogs do the “Other posts your may like” links at the bottom. I could just click through those all day long!

11. What is your favorite book?
I suck at decisions. Maybe Between A Rock and A Hard Place by Aron Ralston (which is the book 127 Hours was based on) or Honeymoon With My Brother by Franz Wisner (which I think is being made into a movie right now)

My questions:
1) If you were on Nickelodeon’s hit 90’s show “What Would You Do”, and your post-it note stuck on your head had hidden talent written on it, what would yours be?
2) What’s your favorite movie quote?
3) If you had to eat one thing every single day for the rest of your life what would it be?
4) What’s your all time favorite song?
5) Who would you choose to play you in a movie?
6) What’s your proudest moment?
7) What was your first concert?
8) What was your favorite childhood show?
9) If you could change your name, what would you change it to and why?
10) Why do you love your city?
11) NSYNC or Backstreet Boys?

Thanks for tagging me Jenn!
Now it's my turn to tag these fine folks:
Jessica @ Of Revolt
Laura and Bryan @ Here, There, and Elsewhere
Tracy @ Scribble Smudge
Chelsea @ The Collegebook
Elizabeth and Kyle @ Love Is The Adventure
Nat @ Take the Cannoli
Amanda @ The Daily Sweatpants

Sorry if you've already been tagged, and respond if you wish, no pressure.

Charlie is . . . innocent until proven guilty

Feb 26, 2012

Charlie has a GREAT poker face.

"Charlieeeee, did you do this?"

Sometimes, he can look normal.
1% of the time.

Update:
Within an hour of posting this, we returned home from lunch and Josh said "I have a bad feeling Charlie got into something."
We didn't see anything obvious upon entering, so we just started playing around with him.
A few minutes later, he projectile vomits black junk that reaked of mint chocolate.
After searching the house completely we found this . . .

You know you are in a rural Louisiana ER when . . .

Feb 24, 2012

. . . you see this on the wall:
(You know, just in case you come in dying unable to speak because some weird snake bit you and you need to point out which was it was)

. . . or when you don't fit in because you are literally the only one not wearing cowboy boots, commonly referred to as "my workin' boots"

. . . or when you can't convince a patient that she needs a stress test done, because she is too busy sewing her toddler's newest pageant dress.

Sometimes I tend to avoid talking about school on the blog, but I couldn't help but share these things. 
(I kinda see this as a break from focusing on school, distraction? nah) 

Yesterday was my final day of my ER rotation, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the country! 
9 rotations down, 3 to go!

We are nearing that big bright scary light at the end of the tunnel and it's kinda freaking me out.

At least I have plenty of motivations to get through these next few months:
Dr. Dog and Givers concert in Houston
A weekend trip to Auburn for my childhood/highschool/college best friend's birthday
2nd row tickets for the Avett Brothers show in Shreveport! 
(Seriously. Maggie is amazing for scoring these.)
Avett Brothers concert at Red Rocks (again!)
. . . and of course, the NYC trip with mom and Ellie!

As soon as this delightful test is finished with today, I'm off to Dallas to see some these fine fellas:

The weekend of many dates

Sweet little Amanda at The Daily Sweatpants is hosting a "Date Your Man" link party, (and due to the whole "long distance relationship" thing/lack of dates I had to this old post from my arsenal.
Feel free to hop on over to Amanda's blog and join the fun!

http://thedailysweatpants.blogspot.com/

(Originally posted on October 9, 2011)

This weekend was jam packed with millions of billions of dates . . . 
We actually started dating 5 years ago this week, which gave us the perfect excuse to celebrate.


I had a nice date with Charles at the Nature Preserve.

. . . followed by a pretty mouth watering date with this caramel apple cupcake from Sprinkles.

Next up was a date with Ikea to plan and decorate my future imaginary home.

Josh and I got to refresh our climbing skills at the Exposure indoor rock climbing gym.



 . . . followed by a Whole Foods date.
(Team Ron Paul!)

Yiiiiiiikes.

. . . but the best date of probably my whole lifetime was this one.

It's not that often that we get to dress up all fancy and go on a reaaaaaaal date.
Josh pulled a fast one on me by taking me downtown to Nobu for probably the best meal of my existence.


I was so stunned, I told Josh he could order everything for me. 
(Mainly because I didn't wanna put too big of a dent in his checkbook, and partly because I was just freaking out.)
Josh chose for each of us to get a prepaid (8 course!) meal where the chef chooses each course for you.
Coming from someone who hates ketchup and vegetables, this was a very brave move for me.
It turned out to be the best decision ever, because I have rarely eaten anything this fresh/tasty/amazing/savory/mouth watering/ridiculous.
Naturally, I documented most of it so that we wouldn't forget it.
Judge me.

(True story: an NBA player who will remain nameless was sitting at the table beside me and imitated me taking pictures of our food so that all of his friends could have a good laugh)

First course: 
Toro tartar with caviar.
True story.
The best part was the Japanese mountain peach to cleanse our palates.
Fancy stuff, right there.

Seared Ahi Tuna sashimi salad with natsuhisa dressing.

Broiled Alaskan black cod with miso sauce wrapped in a bamboo leaf.
. . . and it had another Japanese mountain peach, my fav!

Kobe beef grilled at the table with asparagus, shallots, onions, and mushrooms sauteed in truffle oil.
Our fav course.

. . . an assortment of sushi.

. . . and then the cutest little mushroom soup I have EVER seen.

 Dessert was a strawberry tofu concoction . . . I didn't pay attention to many details, because I kinda panicked after I heard the word tofu.
Even though we were completely stuffed, this dessert was perfectly sweet and light.

Maybe we can go back in 5 more years?

(Todays reaaal post is coming later, no worries!)

Recipe: Toad in a Bowl

Feb 23, 2012

Last weekend, I was in zombie study mode, and what do you do when you are in study mode?
Everything but study.
I was craving cheese and bread and eggs, and normally in this peculiar yet oh so common situation, I would make a toad in a hole.
(Which apparently is also what people in England call sausage in Yorkshire pudding. Eh?)
 That is probably the correct terminology, but I feel like you could call an egg inside a piece of bread anything you want.
Josh chooses to get all redneck and call it possum in a stump.

Anyways, I need a nice little study break, so I changed it up a bit.
I only made two bowls, and I don't have exact amounts of what I used.
 I just kinda threw stuff in there as I went.
Sorry OCD peeps out there, I'm really freaking you out right now if you were truly planning on making this.

Ingredients:
Bread bowl/roll with a hole cut out (whatever works)
cheese (sharp cheddar would be the best)
bacon
green onions
whipping cream


I kinda got carried away with chopping up the green onions, but I'm kinda obsessed with the new Yoshi blade knife.

I used my camembert cheese from my most recent cheese shipment, but I wasn't crazy about it combined with the eggs.
Next time I'm thinking a sharp sharp sharp cheddar would be more appropriate.

Whisk some cream in with the eggs, then mix in however much green onions and bacon you choose.

Since I was using that Camembert cheese, I laid it on the bottom of the bowl before pouring the egg mixture over it.

I baked it on 350 for about 20 minutes, and the roll was getting crispy, but the middle of the eggs weren't cooking all the way through.
I ended up taking them out of the oven and microwaving them for about 30 seconds to get the eggs to cook completely (which worked wonderfully, but kinda made the bowl explode).

. . . and that was that.
Pretty darn easy (and pretty darn healthy, right?) 

Time for a little bloggy business meeting:

1) I've been informed by some real sweet bloggers out there that Google Friend connect won't be around much longer, so if you follow this blog through something other than Blogger, you better bookmark me or add me to BlogLovin because I would hate for you to get lost out there in no man's land.
That was an incredibly long run-on sentence.

2) Call me crazy, but am I the only girl in the world who didn't know you could edit pictures on photo bucket? I just thought it was a boring site to upload pictures too.
Dang it.

3) Apparently my domain name (www.dashboarddiary.com) has been acting up.
When you try to visit the blog by leaving off the www. it takes you to some ugly GoDaddy.com page.
I called the fine folks at GoDaddy, and they cleared everything right up (and they were suuuuuuper nice and it was all SO EASY, so if you ever need a domain name I definitely recommend using them!)

4) If you wanna swap buttons for the month of march email me soon!
(emily@dashboarddiary.com)

My emergency medicine test is tomorrow, so I'm off to bite off whats left of my poor little fingernails study.

Fat Tuesday is way cooler than Skinny Tuesday

Feb 21, 2012

Happy Fat Tuesday guyyyyysssss!

This year marks the 200th birthday of Louisiana, and what better way to celebrate than with the greatest cake in Louisiana?

King Cake!

They truly make great birthday cakes, my friends had one special ordered for my 18th birthday.
Yikes. High school.

The best king cake in all of Louisiana is most definitely from Julie Anne's in Shreveport. 
(Which was once featured in People magazine and Southern Living!)
Sorry, south Louisiana peeps, no Gambinos for me, I'm a little biased.

My favorite one they make is filled with pralines and cream cheese.
"Traditional" king cakes don't have any filling, and that's terribly boring.

The rule is whoever finds the little plastic baby Jesus has to buy the king cake next year.
Honestly, in all my years of king caking, no one has ever kept up with that.
It's just fun to find a little plastic child inside your cake?

Once king cake season arrived (back in January) Ellie was in the middle of doing the Daniel Fast with our church, and this conversation happened:

I was planning on making a homemade king cake this weekend and blogging a how-to, but due to a severe overdose on king cake this past month, I couldn't work up the courage (or insulin) to do it.
 (My family has had 4 Julie Anne's king cakes total!)
Since today is Fat Tuesday, you better make it live up to its name!

Speaking of insulin, here is Paula Deen's recipe instead :
Too soon for diabetes jokes?

Pics and recipe via skiptomylou.org
Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
2/3 cup evaporated milk
3/4 cup plus 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 envelopes active dry yeast, regular or rapid rise
3 eggs
Grated zest of 1 lemon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
6 cups all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, melted
1 egg white, for glazing

Cinnamon-Sugar Filling:
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Icing:
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons whole milk
Yellow Sugar, Purple Sugar, Green Sugar

Melt the butter in the microwave in a medium mixing bowl.
 Add the evaporated milk, 3/4 cup of the sugar, and the salt. Stir so that the sugar dissolves. Allow to cool.
Dissolve the yeast in 1/4 cup lukewarm water and stir in the remaining teaspoon sugar. Allow to stand for 5 minutes, until foamy.
Add the yeast mixture to the butter and milk mixture. Add the eggs, nutmeg and lemon zest and whisk together vigorously, until well blended.

Whisk in the flour, 1 cup at a time, until you have a thick paste (about 3 cups flour)
 Then switch to a wooden spoon and continue adding flour and mixing well. 
Do not add more than 6 cups flour, or your cake will be too dense. 
When you have added all the flour, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured wooden board and knead it with your hands, which you have dusted with flour, until the dough is smooth and elastic, about a dozen turns.

Place the dough into a large bowl cooking spray. Turn the dough to coat all sides with spray. Cover the bowl with a tea towel and allow the dough to rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

Make the cinnamon-sugar filling: 
Combine the sugar and cinnamon in a small dish and stir well.
Punch the dough down and divide the dough in two. Roll out each half into a 10 by 15 inch rectangle. Brush each rectangle with half of the melted butter and then sprinkle each rectangle with half of the cinnamon-sugar filling mixture. Roll up along the long end like a jelly roll. Press the roll together at the seam, sealing with water if necessary. Wind the two rolls together, forming one thick piece. On a baking sheet sprayed with vegetable oil cooking spray, form the dough into a circle and seal the ends together.
Cover with a tea towel and allow the cake to rise in a warm place for about 1 hour, until it almost doubles in size.

Don’t forget to hide your baby Jesus!

 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. 
Whisk the egg white with 1 tablespoon water. Brush the top of the cake with the egg white. Bake the cake for 35 minutes, until it is browned and sounds hollow when tapped. 

Make the white icing: 
Combine the sugar and milk in a small dish and whisk until smooth. If the mixture seems too thin, add a little more sugar. If it won’t drizzle, add a little more milk, 1/2 teaspoon at a time.

Allow the cake to cool for a few minutes on a wire rack. 
Drizzle with icing and sprinkle the colored sugar in random patterns over the white icing.


Taaaa daaa!
Not too hard, huh?
If you wanna skip all the dough difficulties, you can always use crescent rolls for the dough stuffed with a cream cheese/pie filling combo.
(Just make the little crescent doughy triangles look like this, spread your filling around the ring, then wrap them over the top of the filling and bake away!)
Complements of mom, the former Pampered Chef.

If all that sounds too complicated then feel free to make these bad boys:
King cake knots!
Recipe here
I need them in my life.

Trish and I have big plans to get super fat for dinner tonight.
I'm just a regular 'ol Baptist, but she's one of those Catholic type folk so she's giving up lots of scary things for lent:
Cokes, sweets, and fried food.
Her willpower astounds me.
Is anyone else out there giving up something for lent?

Happy Fat Tuesday, from Sir Charles!
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