Tis the Season

Merry Christmas!

I'm here!

(Well, that is, if you are here too and we therefore share a "here.")

Anyway, hit me up. ;)

finals week.

finals week was quite eventful this semester. katie, steph, rachel and i went out on Monday night for my birthday to Cheeseburger in Paradise.

*steph and katie*
*the birthday girl :)*
I also put together goodie bags filled with candy and treats for my and katie's elderly friends at Langhorne Gardens Nursing and Rehabilitation Center where we play Bingo or Pokeno every Wednesday night.

*the final product.*
*i also put together a going-away present for Billy (he's transferring to a college in Florida) from Katie and i.*
*this is me and Addeline, my very favorite nursing home friend. she was very excited to take a picture with me, and she's holding her goodie bag proudly on display.*
*katie and i'm not sure i can remember her name. oops.*
*the ladies (i forget her name, eleanor, and pat) with the new guy (Joe) who's doing community service at the nursing home. ha!*
*katie and joe and oh stink i forget her name too. oops. i wasn't in these pictures because i went with Addie to her room and she was showing me pictures of her grandchildren :), and then we had a heart-felt goodbye until January 20 something.*
*rachel, billy, me, katie and steph. out on wednesday night to say goodbye to billy :(*
*ha. another one. rachel accidentally got cut out of the picture, but it was cute of me and billy.*
so there you have it. thanks for all the birthday wishes today. i am currently packing to come home and just finished watching a movie with rachel. i work tomorrow from 7am-10pm. pray for me. it will be rough. but i get to come home on Saturday morning!!!
love you all.
<3 jecca

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESSICA!

Happy minute you were born Jecca!Doesn't Dad look rested? Jecca sure does!

This was just the beginning of many long nights to come :)
Beautiful in lavendar!

Happy Birthday Jessica~have a good day~and come home!!

Cupcakes Anyone?

It's been a while since I teased you guys with a cupcake, so here you go!

This latest cupcake was very trying for me for several reasons.

1. I was baking for an actual event, not just because I wanted to bake.

2. The cake recipe calls for figs, but it's winter in Maine. I had to use dates.

3. I mistakenly used both the stick of butter called for and the stick of butter I was softening for the icing in the cake batter.

However...despite my best efforts to ruin them, these cupcakes are both tasty and cute. Observe:

These are Date Spice Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting and Fig Newton Books.

Last night I pre-gamed the cupcaking by decorating 24 Fig Newtons with tiny little book spines. I'm taking these to the potluck for my Young Adult Lit class. The course title is ERL 518.


And then when I started actually preparing the cupcakes this morning, I had to begin by stewing the dried dates. Let me just say . . . well, I'll just show you.

See? It's not good. I just don't like dried fruit too much. And I hate hate hate things with skins. And the dates started out dried and then - with the stewing - gave up their skins. Ugh. I'm making an ew face just thinking about it again. It makes my own skin feel a little crawly.

Anyway, I powered through the stewing portion of the show and then opted for the food processor rather than the "chopping" that the recipe demanded. I just couldn't be handling the dates that much. The processing worked just fine.

Dates aside, the recipe was quite nice. I made some lovely - read odd - buttermilk and combined that with some reserved date water and I was on my way! Please note the snow. It continued to snow all day today. Again. I'm so over it.

The cupcakes are really helping me cope with the snow for sure. Haha. Don't question it, just let it be.

Here's a wacky picture of both my life at the moment and one of the cupcakes. Notice the stack of books in the background. They'll be going to class with me tomorrow too.


So, that's what I've been up to lately. What about you?

random update.

all of these pictures uploaded backwards. i'm not too excited about that, but it'll have to do. these are just some random pictures from the past week or two that i thought you all might enjoy.

*josh getting in touch with his earth-nature.*

*the sweetest boots i've ever found, at a thrift store in Bangor, ME. they were a little too big. i was devastated.*

*these next two pictures might not interest you in the least, but they are my pride and joy. i did a semester-long business project where i had to come up with my own company... anyways, it was legit... and this was the store i was going to rent.*

*josh looked the best in this lovely wig.*

*this picture was taken only minutes after the tears of joy had dried from josh's wonderful surprise. i was in shock.*

*this, my dear family, is my smokin' hot business attire worn for my final business presentation. i got a 98.225% on the presentation. woohoo!!!*

alright, i guess that's it. i didn't take many pictures in Maine because josh and amanda had such cool cameras that mine paled in comparison. i'll post again soon hopefully... with birthday pics possibly :)

<3 jecca

Decking our Halls

We decorated today and wanted to share with everyone.

Here's our beautiful purple tree and the traditional lava lamp! Even though I still need a few bows, I wanted you to see the awesome paper we found at the dollar tree today! I'm so loving it!Last but not least! Can you see the three stooges?

There are two sets of stooges in the pic, did you see them both??

More from Maine

So, in reverse order . . .

Jessica and Josh tried Lobster ice-cream. They were . . . unimpressed.

We all stood on some rocks by a dock at Bar Harbor. Look at our winsome poses.

Jessica, of her own will, approached a bird. She was taken in by the seagulls' expertise with oyster cracking.

And last night, we all enjoyed one of Jessica's kitchen creations. We'll call it Chicken Parme-Jess. Quite good.
And the party is still rolling here. We're watching Nacho Libre tonight (it will be my first time), and Jessica is making her cookies. So I'm going to get back to it.

maine-ly thankful.

here are a few pictures from today's festivities. i left out a lot of things, but i just wanted to give you a smathering of the events :)


matt and mandi at evan & kim's house.

josh playing with damon (the cat).
matt, josh and i. umm... everyone was playing video games and i kinda passed out. oops.
Bangor Chamber of Commerce!!! what?! i thought i should have my picture taken here in honor of my recent (huge) project for Small Biz Management and Entrepreneurship class.
haha. i don't even know. but i thought it was cool.
josh and i on a walk after thanksgiving dinner.
josh and i before thanksgiving dinner.
manda and her pre-thanksgiving dinner eggnog :)


so, there you have it. hope everyone had a GREAT thanksgiving. i know we did up here in Maine!
<3 love you all.
-jecca-

Thanksgiving Eve

Ah, 'tis Thanksgiving Eve. (Is it still 'eve' all day on the day before something spectacular, or does that just come about the night of the day before something spectacular? In any case...)

Today is the day before Thanksgiving and I'm very excited about this year's festivities. Last year was great too, don't get me wrong. We had a big potluck dinner with a bunch of grad students that stayed here over break, and it was nice to be able to hang out with friends on Thanksgiving. However, I pre-gamed Thanksgiving last year with work on an annotated bibliography for one of my courses. Then I finished that annotated bibliography on Friday. So, nice, yes. But I think this Thanksgiving is going to blow that Thanksgiving out of the water. Here are my reasons for thinking so:

1. My sister is here!

Instead of driving for 5+ hours to get from her school in PA to home in VA, Jessica decided to fly one hour from PA to ME. She found a cheap ticket and here she is. I've been planning for her 7 day stay for weeks now. She visited ME this summer, so the list of possible activities is greatly changed now in winter.

2. My brother is here!

Now, I was NOT planning for this. Yesterday, I giddily met up with my sister in the classic big-smile-wave-from-afar-followed-by-big-hug airport reunion. Arm in arm we took the escalator down to baggage claim and talked about carry-on bag size and the necessity of a checked bag. The conversation seems silly now, but it made sense at the time.

Then I felt a tap on my shoulder paired with a question about luggage or something ridiculous. Sure that some Mainer was asking me a stupid question, I wheeled around to see a young guy much taller than me standing rather close for a stranger. My first reaction?: "Why would one of my students approach me in the airport? Honestly?!" My second reaction?: OMGflurgyabnogyah, it's my brother!

And like Jessica reported from her surprised reaction in the PA airport, I said something along the lines of "How are you here?!"

Of course by this point I was crying. And I did not expect that either. So, I'm standing in the airport with my brother and sister, crying, and thinking how fully I have now turned into my mother, when the baggage claim track begins to move. In perfect Maine fashion, it produces maybe 7 or 8 pieces of luggage and stops, stranding those 7 or 8 pieces of luggage on the farthest bit of the carousel. As Jessica and Joshua walked around to claim their baggage, I stood, sniffling with Jessica's oversized Vera and composed myself.

This, I knew, was going to be the best Thanksgiving on record.

3. I am making Sweet Potato Casserole Cupcakes!

Now, it may seem silly to rank a cupcake with the presence of my brother and sister, but it you feel that way then you obviously have not been paying attention. If that is the case, I'll catch you up. I <3 baking cupcakes. I've been planning this particular cupcake for about two weeks. The recipe looks fantastic and I've made a very similar pumpkin cake that allows me to feel confident about the result of this recipe.


So there you have it. These are the three most readily available reasons why Thanksgiving is going to rock this year.

Now I have to compile a grocery list with my sister while brother takes full advantage of the rare opportunity to sleep in.

Happy Thanksgiving Eve everyone! <3

maine-ly surprised.

wow. i was extremely surprised to see a person that looked exactly like my brother in the philadelphia airport this morning at 6am on my way to visit mandi in maine. i started crying when i realized that it was actually hosh. i couldn't believe it. i was so confused.

josh told me that everyone around us was looking at us and smiling. there was lots of hugging and lots of crying (on my part). there was actually a lot of question-asking as well. josh told me that i said, "what?! what's going on here?!"

ok, fast forward a few hours to the bangor, maine airport. i went to meet amanda and we went to claim my luggage... and then some strange boy comes up behind amanda and asks if she's seen his luggage. then some more crying started, because it was HOSHHHHH!!!!!!!

i'm telling this story horribly. i'm sorry. the truth is i really can't explain it. great surprises. great reunions. wonderful, wonderful day.

here are some pics of the day, but only from amanda's camera (because her computer doesn't like josh's or my memory card):


purple wig :) ha!me and mambi <3
hosh (pounding chicken) and mambi (cutting onions) fixing dinner. it was yum!


hopefully there will be more pictures to come soon. love you all.
<3 jess

p.s.- mom, i can't believe you kept such a secret! you're sneaky :) thank you. so much.
i love you.

maine-ly awake.

i'm off to maine.
it's very early.
dear katie is taking me to the airport.
security will pick us up in 7 minutes to take us to her car.
i'm very excited, and very sleepy.
but very excited.
<3 see you soon, mambi!!!

I thought the reference was pretty clear

but I guess not!

Here you are then. Enjoy. :)


'I woke up in love this morning' by the Partridge Family

sNOw!

I woke up to snow this morning.
I woke up to snow this morning.
Went to sleep with sun on my mind.
I woke up to snow this morning.
I woke up to snow this morning.
Went to sleep with sun on my mind.


*If this song hasn't been written, it needs to be.*

this time next week...

i'll be in maine with mandi... woohoo!

Stuff

Josh ready for a rideBike or Treating-the standing version

Bike or treating- the sitting version, this was more comfortable

Keven sleeping on the open waters

Bob, Keven and Ken before their deep sea fishing adventure. You can tell it's before because Ken isn't green.

Happy 95 Ione!!!!

These are in a weird order but fun anyway!