S is for Shortbread

Shortbread is rapidly becoming my favorite treat. Easy to make, good with coffee, and oh so yummy to eat! Well on Friday, my amazing mother-in-law knocked on the door and handed me an early birthday/Christmas/just-because present: a shortbread mold!

Earlier in the week I had noticed one hanging up at the Sniders, and got really excited about it because I had never seen one before. So Mom Snider went and found me one for my very own :) On Friday, when I got a bit of free time (time when I *should* have been writing those Thank You notes I'm behind on...), I went and found my mom's shortbread recipe, and made some yummy Christmasy shortbread!

The recipe is super easy, just butter, flour, and sugar.

It takes all of 3 minutes to mix up, and only about 15-20 minutes to bake.

Ingredients:

1 stick butter (softened). A great way to do this is 3 minutes in the microwave at power level 2. Softens beautifully, but doesn't melt!
1/4 c sugar
1 1/4 c flour

Directions

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Grease cookie sheet (or mold).
Beat butter until soft with wooden spoon. Beat in sugar. Sift flour (after measuring) and stir in with wooden spoon. Finish combining with your hands.

If you’re gonna put it on a cookie sheet, pat into a circle 1/8 inch thick on a floured board. Score into wedges. Sprinkle with sugar and transfer circle to a cookie sheet. Bake 15-20 minutes until golden.

If you're gonna put it in a mold, press dough hard into mold until flat. Trim excess off top. Sprinkle sugar on top, place in oven and bake 20 minutes.

Well, I don't think I pressed the dough down tight enough into the mold, because the pictures on the cookies were anything but clear. Sigh. I think I could tell one was an ornament, but the others? Nothing.

But the shortbread was so good, and it's not quite the holidays, so I have time to perfect my shortbread molding skills before they really need to look like Christmas trees ;)

Organizing my Life

I feel like things still haven't slowed down since we moved, but when I think about it, they really have. I just haven't learned how to use my unscheduled time very well. The days have rushed by and now it's November, but I still don't have a lot to say for my organization skills. The house is a constant project and that's just so I can walk around without stubbing my toe on some thing-a-ma-jig lying on the floor. I still find myself popping to the store at least twice a week for that milk I forgot to buy, or that butter we're all out of. And if I'm not at the store, I'm apologizing to Nathan for the lack of anything green with dinner because I forgot to go to the store. I am light-years behind in writing thank-you notes (not to mention some actual letters!), so my relatives are beginning to wonder if I'm still alive. I haven't branched out a whole lot and actually planned things with anyone either, so I really don't know where my days have gone, and that's a little scary. When I realized what an unorganized mess I had made out of the new Snider household, I decided to dedicate my November to organizing my life. So on the first of November to-do lists came out, projects started to get done, and exercise videos began rolling. We'll see how long I can keep this up. Yeeeeah.

This week I made a Thanksgiving banner to hang above our fireplace to remind me to be thankful for everything God has given me (even if He didn't give me natural organization skills!), and to add a bit more Harvest decor to the apartment. Pinterest strikes again.

And I also finally got my pantry into shape. I was getting tired of onions falling off the shelves onto my head, so I carved out a chunk of time, and cleeeaaaned her out.

Heh. Now I'll have to see if some thank you notes get done tomorrow...

Cookies and Leaves

A good friend of mine requested that I post some pictures to give context to where we live. So this is some of what you would see if you drove up to our apartment :) I only wish my camera could've captured the brilliancy of the leaves here...

This wreath is hanging on our door, and apart from the little pumpkins strewn all over my dining room table, is one of the the only fall decorations I ended up pulling together. But I love it. I've never really loved the fake leaf wreaths, so when I found this one with berries, I just had to get it!

And here's our apartment! #158 :) The middle floor rocks. Not too many stairs and free heating from other people. Could life get much better?

Here is a snatch of one of those beautiful trees right outside of our apartment. Our apartment complex is really into ridding the place of all twigs and leaves, I was afraid they would scoop up all the fall leaves as they fell, but I guess they're pretty enough to avoid the clean-up crew.

See?

And more tree pictures...

This here is my bike. And I love it. It works great for getting to and from my work, which is just a little over a mile away. And the little basket is perfect for my purse, a coat, a water bottle, and a bag of groceries. It was a great buy from Target!

And finally, a little snatch of what I've been up to today. I'm getting over a cold so it's been a very slow morning/afternoon with a lot of reading, sleeping, and listening to Nathan playing his guitar (*happy*). But I did want to do something to make myself feel useful, so out came the recipe book (or Pinterest recipe pinboards in all honesty ;)). I've been waiting to make these molasses cookies all season, and I *finally* remembered to put molasses on the grocery list last time I went, so I was able to make them this afternoon! Some turned out perfect... and some were just a little brown. I'm ready for a new kitchen timer to keep me on task!

A Bit of Fall

So I thought my last post was long in coming, but now I know better. Such is the life.

The last couple of months have been a whirlwind with Back to College overtime insanity at Bed, Bath and Beyond,

Nathan starting school

Trips to Portland

Visiting with Cristina

And hanging out with my family. We went apple picking at this awesome place called Deterings. But Emily and Annarose were much more impressed with the puppies than with any apples or pumpkins we found there ;)

Then we went to Lone Pine Farms (Thanks for the recommendation, Christine!) and had a blast getting lost in a huge hour-long corn maze -- something I've always wanted to do!

But the highlight of the trip for Dad was, I think, getting to see the Coastal Starlight train enter the station. He begged Nathan to take us to the Eugene Train Station, and was giddy when he saw that a train was coming in within 30 minutes. It made us so happy. Gotta love the simple pleasures :)

But life has shifted back into low gear now all that's over, so Nathan and I are just trying to find jobs, fighting colds, and carving pumpkins. Sunday night was our first completely relaxed and unscheduled night in weeks, so we sat down with a crackling fire, a big ol' pumpkin, a knife, a sewing machine and some Jim Dale (HP 7). Here are a few pictures I took to document it :)

I now remember why October is my favorite month. I just love the leaves and pumpkins and jackets and spices. And Eugene's October has been one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. We are loving it.

New Apartment -- FINALLY!

Well I have been waiting until everything was put together (including assembling about 8 pieces of IKEA furniture!) to post pictures of the apartment, so here you go! There are a few crafts I am waiting to do to pull everything together, but the place is pretty much set up. Nathan and absolutely love it. The space is just so much fun, and it's more roomy than I had hoped. What a great first apartment!

First: The KITCHEN. This was the first room we actually got put together. Most of our wedding gifts were kitchen items, so once we had unpacked all those boxes, we just had to organize them, and voila!

The canisters :)

I tried a spice drawer for the first week, but all my spices were bulk from Winco, so everything in the drawer started tasting like cinnamon and garlic very quickly, so I had to find an alternative. These magnetic spice tins were perfect (World Market!).

After eating off of a coffee table for a week, we finally bought this little table from IKEA and assembled it. It was a wonderful deal, and we just love the weight and size of it! Plus, the wood seems to just repel spills, which is kind of a necessity in a home that has Littlejohn genes :)

Living Room! This room was my favorite room to put together. Finishing it is what finally made me feel like we had a home. I am in the process of making new throw pillows for the couches right now, and can't wait until they're done.

These white shelves were on the AS IS rack at Bed, Bath and Beyond, because they were missing some screws. But Nathan took care of that pretty quickly, and so we got to add a nice touch of personality to the family room.

The den is doubling as our second bedroom when company comes, so we have a futon as the centerpiece in here. The TV is in the corner, and we have two more bookshelves and Nathan's desk lining the walls. With the chess board on the coffee table, our other games on the bookshelves, and my craft stuff in the closet, this room has become our lounge and craft room. It seems accumulate piles of mess for some reason or the other and currently has strips of fabric and batting all over the floor... Heh.

The bathroom.
And lastly, our bedroom. Bed was a steal from craigslist, and the nightstands and dresser were from IKEA. We also have a walk-in closet -- something I have been dreaming about since I was about 4, when I used to play hide-and-seek in my parents' huge one. It. is. the. best.

We also have a wood-burning fire place in the corner of the living room, and burning a fire is one of my most favorite things about the winter. It might help keep away some of the gloom of the rainy-ness I am waiting for (so far every single day has been BEAUTIFULLY sunny). I am so excited about this apartment, and can't wait until everything about it feels like home.

An hour in lovely Portland

Nathan and I left Eugene yesterday to join my family up in Ocean Shores, WA for one last family vacation before we settled in Oregon. We ended up leaving about an hour and a half earlier than my family did, so we had some time to spare and weren't sure how to spend it. But I had found some canisters from Williams-Sonoma online, and had gotten very attached to them.

I looked through several other stores and couldn't find anything I liked as well, so I was planning on ordering them as soon as we settled back down in Eugene. But the extra hour and a half was the perfect amount of time to drive into Portland, snag the canisters from the actual store and save the $11.50 shipping fee. So that's exactly what we did. It was my first time in Williams-Sonoma (and Pottery Barn, too, which was right next door!), and we had a blast (even Nathan loved looking around :)). I found way too many things I wanted and couldn't afford, and drooled over the beautiful bedspreads and clocks and dressers and dishes.

After scooping up the last full set of canisters left, we walked around town to find something affordable for lunch and stumbled into a hole-in-the-wall called Escape from New York Pizza.

It was probably the most amazing pizza I have ever tasted: the perfect combination of crisp crust, melted cheese and seasoned sauce. If any of y'all go to Portland, I would definitely recommend swinging by the Alphabet district and trying out some of that pizza (3.25-3.75 a slice!); it would totally be worth a detour.

It was such a fun little diversion, and the perfect layover during a day of driving! And I even saved $11.50 on those ceramic canisters. Happy day :)

Packing

Well, today is our last day in Moscow, and packing/cleaning is well underway. The living room is almost impossible to walk through for all the boxes sitting in the way, and the bedroom is now simply a blanket of dust. I would never have imagined that two college kids could amass such a huge amount of junk in just a few years, but considering the two dump runs that have happened, I guess I was wrong. Getting rid of some old junk never hurt anyone, and you can actually see the floor in some closets that haven't been cleared out in years. :) Nathan and I bought two cases of vacuum bags in an attempt to save space, and managed to fit all of our clothes (coats and all) into one big box. Fun times. We loved watching our clothes shrink down into small manageable packages. Can't wait to unpack it all and set up house. Picking up the UHaul in a couple of hours... Eugene, OR, here we come!!

Blogging as a Snider

Well, here I go with a renewed attempt at blogging. I've tried to start a blog several times, and I've never gotten very far. Buuuut, Nathan and I are moving to Oregon in a week and a half, so I thought I would try one last time. What with all my friends getting married and moving away, and my family still being back in Moscow, I wanted some way to post tidbits about the Snider household without always using Facebook. Inspiration for this blog goes to two people who definitely deserve a plug: My sister Hope (ellisandhope.blogspot.com) and my sister-in-law, Lizzy (mildlyamusingmusings.com). I have really loved reading their blogs over the past couple of years, getting ideas for cooking endeavors and artsy projects, and so here I go!

So far, as a Snider woman, I have

1. Had my car totaled

2. Visited family in Oregon (the best :D)

3. Been to the weddings of my best friends, Kaitlin and John Hundscheid and Sean and Heather Johnson

4. Walked the Village of Hogsmeade and Hogwarts Castle in Orlando, FL

5. Driven across the country and back with Nathan :)

6. Cooked my very first homemade bread (Soooo excited. This was on my Bucket List).


AND 7. Cheerfully watched my nephew Brody smear his first birthday cake all over his face :)

It's been a whirlwind of a summer so far, but I've loved almost every minute and I can't wait for what's ahead.