It's Birthday Week!!!!

With the arrival of a birthday package from Jackie and a birthday card from my friend Matt, I officially declare it the start of Birthday Week!

A little history: There are several reasons why I decided to celebrate "Birthday Week" instead of just my birthday:

1) It's more fun that way :)

2) Growing up I always had to have a "fake" birthday day during the school year since my birthday was in the summer. Also, being so close to the 4th, there were times not everyone could come to my birthday parties because of family vacations, etc. so we would get to celebrate on another day.

3) When I worked random summer jobs in high school and college, people would always celebrate birthday type things with me throughout the week (again, because of the whole 4th thing) extending my birthday celebration

4) In grad school a bunch of us had birthdays within ~1 week of each other, and we would all pick a night and go out for our Annual Birthday Extravaganza (which usually consisted of just about our entire PT class being hungover the next day in class!) Why on earth did we always go out on week nights?!

ANYWAYS! In celebration of Birthday Week, I decided to post a couple of my favorite Bday cards from the past few years. Enjoy!

And now for my favorite...............

My basil plant

Last year I got my first basil plant. It was my first of any kind of plant.....well, I lied. I had a plant in Philly that my mom brought back from North Carolina. ANYWAYS. My basil plant was my first plant that we could actually eat what it was growing. But then we went home for 9 days in August and it died.

So this year I bought another one (Tom told me if I let this one die I'm not allowed to get another one ;) and so far it's doing pretty well. It's been flourishing and we've been eating a lot of pesto and tomato and basil soup. Email me (alb245@yahoo.com) if you have any good suggestions of additional things I can make with all of my basil! Otherwise I'm just going to make a bunch of pesto and freeze it.

P.S. Sorry all of my blogs lately are about food!

Second job and Sad blogs

I got to work today! At my second job! I had been cancelled 3 times in a row (and on the 3rd time I called to politely ask Why?!) So needless to say they didn't cancel me today. But I hadn't worked in 2 months! Which was a drastic change after working ~2x/month since January. So it took a little extra motivation to get back in the swing of things today. Anyways........

So if you haven't noticed I added a couple of blogs under a special "links" section on my website. I've been reading them for a while now, and I feel like I need to warn you that they are terribly sad and will probably make you cry (if you are anything like me) but definitely worth the read. And you will get addicted. They definitely put things into perspective!

P.S. I still haven't made anything with my jalepeno's!! :x Tomorrow is the day!

What to make with Jalapenos????

A coworker brought in a giant bag full of jalapeno peppers today. (Not my photo, I stole it from the internet. I'm too lazy to take a picture with my camera, hook it up to my computer, download it, and then upload it to here. Shhhhh. Don't tell the blogger gods).

Anyways.............I'm not quite sure what to do with them! I've found some yummy looking recipes on my favorite recipe site. Most likely it will be some kind of warm dip involving cream cheese, shredded cheddar cheese, possibly tomatoes, and possibly 1 or 2 other key ingredients.

I don't even think I like jalapenos but they look like they'll be fun to cook :) Wish me luck!

Best Dessert Ever

This is easily my new favorite summer dessert! Here's a link to the original recipe. I would definitely recommend doubling the oreos for the crust.

Baby shower # 6 (???) and some other fun stuff

Yesterday we went to yet another baby shower. Except this was one of the good ones (no games). It was a brunch shower so there was plenty of yummy food and some super strong coffee........of which I had too much of. I spent the rest of the day with the jitters and feeling like my heart was trying to jump out of my chest. NOT fun.

A couple of weeks ago was Tom's birthday. The weekend before his birthday I made him all kinds of yummy foods. A few of the highlights were:

1) Buffalo chicken wings

2) Bake Sale Lemon Bars

3) Homemade Tortilla chips





4) And a trifle we shared with some friends

Magic City Brewfest II

This weekend was the fabulous second annual Magic City Brewfest! As you all know, Tom and I love beer, so of course we were excited for a chance to sample hundreds of yummy beers. Usually, we arrive on time or slightly late to social events, but for the beer festival, we were 50 minutes early :) And thank goodness too because friends of ours waited in line for over an hour to get in (after the beer sampling had already begun!) With no further ado, Let the picture story telling begin!

Sloss Furnaces...Home to the Brewfest...and also some other historical stuff

They (finally) opened the gates! Run! Get Beer!

Brewfest

Birmingham has a brewery?! WHAT? When was someone planning on telling me this???

Me and Thomas enjoying our beers

Beer tents

Our beer sampling glasses

I ate alligator! I think that officially qualifies me as a "Southerner!" The bottom things are alligator tail. Tasted like chicken! I actually would have thought they were chicken if I didn't hear the guy serving them say what they were! And of course, there is a yummy fried green tomato above the alligator tails!

View of some of the beer tents from across the water spraying things.

View at night