Sequins of Events

Hey peeps,

You live in Phoenixville? You got laternflies? What do you think about the laternfly histeria going on around here? It feels ALL CONSUMING.

If you don’t live in a Phoenixville, or the surrounding area, we have an invasive species of THE FLY here that kills our trees.

I go back and forth about using pesticide on the trees. Pesticides are bad for the environment and dogs and kids and deer. THE FLY are bad for trees.

AND I LOVE TREES. We actually have a ton of beautiful trees in our neighborhood. Just some beautiful birches and maples with the prettiest leaves.

I just read an article about how there are types of fungi that will kill it naturally. GO nature.

The other bad thing in the case of using the pesticides is that if you got a GUY. A pesticide GUY. It gets kinda expensive pretty fast. Around $100 a tree.

What are you folks doing to prevent THE FLY?

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Hi friends! What have you been up to? Have you been baking? I’ve been baking.

Have you ever made a recipe on the back of a box you bought at the store? You’re all like, I use my grandma’s recipes! I never do that! You SHOULD! Some of them are pretty good. There are some real gems out there. Because my all time favorite cookie is on the back of a box.

Or really… on top of a lid. Have you ever made the Quaker Oats Cookie recipe? OMIGOSH. Its fantastic.

I sometimes switch out the raisins for chocolate chips for funsies. I made these recently and brought them to work for a coworker. He wasn’t there and I just left them on the desk.

BUT THEN A BIG MOUSE CAME AND ATE THESE COOKIES. LIKE ALMOST A WHOLE COOKIE AND THEY ARE BIG COOKIES.

I’ve read “If you give a mouse a cookie.” And now I’m all worried if I am now beholden to giving things to this mouse. I know how these things go.

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Have you guys heard in the Phoenixville area about the plant thief?!

He comes at night, some say he rides a motorbike. He drives in around your house and BOOM he strikes! Your begonias are begone.

I don’t have anything but weeds at my new house, so they won’t come around here. But pull your leafy amigos inside at night!

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We have missed several weeks of cookie of the week! I mean, what have you guys been eating for dessert? KALE?!

Pinterest kept advertising pudding cookies for me over and over again, so I decided to try it myself. They turned out pretty good. They are basically super soft sugar cookies. Sugar pudding cookie sounds like something your grandma would baby talk to you.

They remind me a lot of the Otis Spunkmeyer cookies kids used to sell at my high school to raise money for their clubs. The cookies were sold by the special ed classes and smelled SOOOOO GOOOOD in the morning. Especially good if you only had an orange for breakfast and knowing you had basically a mayonnaise sandwich for lunch.

Anyways here is the recipe. Bing Bang Boom.

Sugar Pudding Cooks.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup of butter
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• Teaspoon of Vanilla (I just drizzle it in. Very professional, I know.)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda (See above)
• 1 3.5 ounce packet vanilla pudding mix
• 1.5 cups of whole wheat flour

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy and smooth (Are those helpful descriptions?). Add egg, vanilla, baking soda. Mix until combined.
3. Mix in the pudding mix.
4. Add in the flour until just combined.
5. Scoop the dough onto the baking sheet. (I like a big cookie, so I use a big (about 2 tbsp) amount of dough.) Bake 8-10 minutes. Lean more towards the 8 minute side of that.
6. Allow to cool for 3-5 minutes before you stuff ’em in your mouth.

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Hey gang! Sorry to leave you hanging last month! I am the worst!!!

BD and I moved into a house!

A house we bought!

Let me tell you. Moving from a one bedroom apartment into a house house like a full, real house is a big change. I needed to reorient myself and get my bearing before I could even start telling you guys all about it.

The suburbs are a real thing guys.

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What are you guys up to this weekend? I hope we get in time to just relax a little and have brunch somewhere as a reward. Because BD and I are moving! We bought a house. (More on this later.) It’s so exciting to start fresh in a new place and then fill it with all your junk.

Great events this weekend:

Alpaca my mat – Yoga with Alpacas – I love Alpacas! They’re like the giraffe of sheep. I can’t imagine doing yoga with them, they don’t exactly seem strong enough to support our weight while we do yoga on their backs. Maybe the teacher is the Alpaca! You go and find out and let me know. I wanna go to the next one.

Biergatens are opening upppppp! – Root Down is opening up their beer garden. Wear sunscreen if you can’t snag one of those great umbrella benches.

Rodin Museum Bar – Open again this weekend. Lets go live like we are in Europe.

Devon Horse Show – The horse show is STILL GOING ON! How can there be any horses left! I follow several of the people who are running little shoppes in the arena and they look like they are having a blast in fancy hats and bougie horse outfits. (They are not dressed as horses.)

Parks on Tap is at Fisher Park this weekend. Go online and look up Fisher Park. How many pictures can you find of one white fluffy dog? I counted 2.

Pay what you wish at the Art Museum. Forget your sunscreen? Go look at the Philadelphia Art Museum this weekend. YOU GOTTA CHECK OUT THE WALT WHITMAN SHOWCASE. I listened to a really interesting npr podcast about him earlier this week. He was a cool/weird guy.

Freakonomics Live Taping – June 6. Ok, I know this isn’t happening technically this weekend, but I thought I would bring it up! I love Freakonomics! So many interesting insights about the behind scenes of things that are really happening. Also, maybe you can use the weekend to catch up on some cool episodes!

Gosh there is so much cool stuff going on this weekend! What are you guys gonna get into?

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I love dogs. Like, a lot.

While, I am waiting to get my own I like to frequent places to scope out to bring my future dog. There are lots of great places out there, but they have differing qualifications. Some will let you have your dog on the porch and will bring him some water. Others have little areas where he can go take a pee.

These are our favorite dog friendly places in the area:

Most breweries are chill mostly because they don’t have a food license which is where people get into trouble. Our favorite brewery – Bald Birds even has dog fashion shows sometimes. So they get #1 spot. They also have this great outdoor patio they just did up.

Fitzwater Station is another favorite of ours. Its right near Valley Forge park and you can walk on a half-mile trail to a dog park. The outdoor seating is on a deck looking out onto the canal. They bring water and there is plenty of grass for your pup to snuff up.

Four Dogs Tavern – Duh. They have outdoor seating as well as a doggie MENU!!! I wonder what happens if you come there with five dogs.

Lucky Dog Saloon – Lots of outdoor seating and friendly dog people. See if you can spot the big guy in the pic!

Do you have a favorite dog location? Let me know!

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Its BD’s Dad’s birthday this week and I wanted to find a cookie to make him for his birthday dinner. Unfortunately, his favorite cookies are chocolate chip. Seriously?!

But whenever someone wants chocolate chip and I’m chocolate chip cookie’d out I usually try to find a chocolate cookie substitute. Its like I can’t hear the “chip” part. What? Oh no! I must have misheard you.

I found this cookie on pinterest. It looked really good. It had the chocolate, it had oats (my favorite cookie ingredient) and it takes like 20 min to make. (No baking involved

Whoever made them did some fantastic photography. Because they looked incredible online.

Unfortunately, mine turned out looking like little poops. Also, they’re super sticky, like fall apart sticky. Not fun to eat. Maybe it was my fault, I made some missing ingredient cookie decisions and maybe these cookies are super sensitive. I didn’t have granulated sugar, so I had to use brown sugar.

They taste incredible though. So they got that going for them. Haha.

Recipe:

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
2 cups granulated sugar (brown sugar in my case)
1/2 cup of milk (almond milk in my case)
4 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
2 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups quick cooking oats

1. Add the butter, sugar, milk, and cocoa powder in a saucepan.

2. Bring to a rolling boil and boil for about 1 minute.

3. Stir in the peanut butter, vanilla, and oats. Drop onto parchment paper.

4. Let cool until sest, about 10-15 minutes – or in my case – never. 🙁

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Happy Memorial Day weekend everyone! BD and I are heading down to Virginia to the beach to catch some rays. “The hot/muggy/butt sweat weather down here is perfect for a beach weekend.” Nothing like butt sweat at the beach! What are you guys doing for your glorious three day weekend? Hanging around town? Boy, do people have some fun stuff lined up around here.

Parks on Tap – I know I say it every weekend. But I LOVE PARKS ON TAP. Its at FDR Park this weekend, which is just a beautiful park in its own right. Sitting under the thing… you know the big greek colonial columns thing. With the roof. Ah – I looked it up. Its actually a gazebo. Just like the fanciest gazebo you ever saw. Drinking a drink enjoying the nice weather. Just the best.

Billy Joel – Um, Billy Joel is in town. So please tell him I said hi and that I just adore everything he does musically.

Devon Horse Show – I went last night! So many fancy, rich people! I listened to a couple get in a big drunken argument until she stormed off. There were beautiful expensive clothes for sale. Lots of fun activity for the kids! So fun to watch. I super enjoyed it.

Rodin Museum Garden Bar – BYO picnic and grab some drinks and lounge among the works of famous artists. WHERE ARE WE PARIS? I know it feels that way, but calm down we’re still in Philadelphia.

Unifest – Looks super fun to check out. Get some food from a truck and a coffee and check out all the stuff!

Fireworks fireworks fireworks –

Longwood Gardens – Always does it up right. Kinda pricey, but totally worth it. We’re gonna go later in the summer, I feel like the first weekend will be PACKEDDDD.

Waterfront – Get there early, but you also can see it from anywhere. Spruce street, Cherry Street etc.

If I know you like I think I do, I hope you all have a great weekend bbqing and enjoying the sunshine. Everyone be sure to remember SPF 50. Lather up.

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