Pumpkin Mocha

In celebration of fall, my husband and I started drinking homemade Pumpkin Mochas!

Enjoy this Autumn drink hot or cold!

Ingredients:
*1-2 TBSP Chocolate Syrup
*1-2 TBSP Pumpkin Pie Syrup
*Pumpkin spice or cinnamon
*2-4 shots of espresso
*Almond Milk (or regular depending on your preference)
*A favorite mug!

How To:
*Mix Chocolate and Pumpkin syrup in mug
*Pull espresso shots
*Pour espresso over chocolate and pumpkin syrup and stir
*Steam milk (attempt for the microfoam perfection!) or pour cold over ice
*Sprinkle pumpkin or cinnamon spice on top
*ENJOY!

Hello Autumn!

Zooey's First Pumpkin Patch

Zooey loved touching the pumpkins!

To welcome the new fall season we took a little trip out to an adorable pumpkin patch.

Zooey's mini pumpkin

There were lots of squashes, pumpkins and gourds. Even pumpkins Zooey's size!

Pink Pumpkin

I found a "pink pumpkin," and part of the price for it went to breast cancer research!









We even had fun on a tractor!

Zooey and her tractor

 Next stop: the apple orchard!

Zooey my Apple

Kick Cancer's Bum!

Good friends since high school

It's a surprise when anyone finds out that they have cancer, but it was a huge surprise when I found out that someone very close to me and my own age (mind you that I just turned 28) finds out that they have stage IV colon cancer that has metastasized to the liver.

If you can please donate or send warm wishes to him and his family.

Thank you.

Will Chalkboard for Espresso

Our Espresso Set up

Considering how busy we have become (as new parents) and the cost of a coffee drink, such as a medium mocha with almond milk is about $6; we thought it was time to add an espresso machine to our household. We picked one that is semi-automatic and has pressure bars (without those you are basically making drip coffee from espresso beans).

Yummy Espresso

Luckily one of my jobs when I first graduated college was working at a delicious coffee shop (Grahams 318). I had been trained how to make stellar espresso and microfoam with even non-fat drinks such as almond milk. Once again, lucky for us, we live close to a tasty “Pop” Coffeeshop (Arcedium Coffee House) that roasts their own coffee and espresso beans. So we have direct access to the freshest beans!

Once our espresso machine arrived we realized that it would be hard to tell apart the espresso from the coffee beans since all we had were two lableless white jars to store them in. You guessed it! It was the perfect time to try out the lovely art of chalkboard painting!

Chalk Paint

Instructions:

-Wash soon to be chalkboard

-Either paint tape shape or attach stencil for shape

-Use small foam roller to paint one coat

-Let dry 4 hours

-(Sanding is optional)

-Use small foam roller to paint second coat

-Let dry 4 hours

-(Sanding is optional)

-If need be paint one more time

Chalked Jars
 

-Let dry 3 days

-“Finish” the chalkboard by applying a layer of chalk

-Wash off

-Ready to use!

Now all that is missing is our very own coffee house sign! J

New Domesticity

Simply the introduction caught my eye, “I could keep going (and going and going), but you get the picture: the career girl---gone---Green Acres the memoir is the new chick lit. Our new collective escapist fantasy is more likely to involve a Vermont farmhouse and a cute Anthropologie apron than a SoHo loft and a pair of Manolos.”

“Homeward Bound: Why Women are Embracing the New Domesticity” by Emily Matchar is a must read book for those interested in the embrace of this new domesticity. You could be in any domestic role and/or in any profession, because this book is not about the how to be the new domesticity, but rather about this new social movement that has taken the country. It follows various domestic concepts since Colonial time to current trends. Topics such as: homemaking, blogging, the Etsy phenomenon, DIY food movement, and attachment parenting are its focus. Matchar avoids writing opinions, but rather reports on historical facts and real life accounts.

 

So if you have ever been intrigued by this new domesticity movement, pick up the book, it’s a quick read and I simply loved it!

Let me know what you thought of it when you finish!

Considering this quick book review/suggestion, I thought it’d be fun to read a book a month and write about it (you can join me if you’d like and it’ll be a little mini online book club!) The book I’m reading for the month of September and will review in October is a book mentioned in “Homeward Bound” and also rumored to be a future movie starring Reese Witherspoon. It is “The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels---A Love Story” by Ree Drummond. It’s a true story about a city chick falling madly in love with a swoon-worthy cowboy and her new life on their ranch. She too has a blog at The Pioneer Woman.

Happy Reading!