Best Doughnuts On the Island

Ahoy! Doughnuts box. Photo by Me.

One of the best things about being on vacation is being able to spoil myself a little on things I usually wouldn't eat. We passed by this small doughnut shop, called Ahoy! Doughnuts, on the way into the island and immediately decided that doughnuts were going to happen.

Our assorted dozen. Photo by Me!

We went into the shop and it smelled heavenly! There were two younger guys, brothers I'm assuming, and their mom. I think the dad was in the back making more doughnuts. The case was full of delicious looking doughnuts of assorted varieties. There was your traditional glazed, beautiful blueberry cake doughnuts, and every type of creme filled doughnut you could imagine. It was hard picking out 12, but somehow we did. As you can see, we picked a majority of the filled ones. Mom wanted a sprinkle one.

Doughnuts by the beach. Photo by me.

We brought the box back home and descended on them like crazed loons! I took mine out on the porch and enjoyed my breakfast by the beach. Look how amazing these were!

Chocolate glazed, custard filled. Photo by me.

Powdered, lemon filled. Photo by me.

What a perfect way to start a day at the beach. A little splurge on one of my favorite treats was a sure fire start to another beautiful day in paradise. If you're even in Oak Island, be sure to check out Ahoy! Doughnuts.

Yankee Candle Halloween Finds - Part 1

One of my favorite places to get Halloween stuff is Yankee Candle. I'm a junkie for their candles and wax tarts, so when it's time for their Halloween collection to start hitting the shelves, I get excited.

The preview party was on August 2nd and I told myself that I wasn't going to play into the hype and purchase anything. I got on the website mid-afternoon and looked through all the new stuff. I was intrigued and fascinated by everything. So much stuff!

And there was a coupon...

I caved.

This is the first piece I picked out. It's the Spellbound tart warmer. On the website it looks blue, but in person it's purple. It's beautiful when it's lit up. The light behind it looks like the moon or a setting sun and makes the shadow really set out. I miss these kinds of tart warmers from Yankee, so I was happy to scoop this one up.

   

This pair is my very first Boney Bunch purchase ever. The toasting bride and groom. I thought they were cute and my favorite of this year's Boneys, so I decided to get them. I also got a set of Yankee's Dreadful Drips. They're white tapers that, when burned, drip red. They're extremely messy. I have a paper towel underneath the Bride and Groom so the wax doesn't drip all over my table. I think I'd rather just burn red or black tapers in these instead.

Overall, I'm very please with the tart warmer and my Boney Bunch purchase. Had I known the tapers were going to be so messy, I would have passed on them.

That's it for part 1. Be on the look out for part 2 - coming soon!

Pumking - aka The Best Beer I Ever Put in My Mouth

The Mister and I went to Jake's Thursday night to enjoy a cold pint and soak up the atmosphere of another night at our favorite bar. They had completely sold out of the Sip & Grip offerings, which was Sam Adams, as well as blown through all of the free glasses well before 6:00 pm. Oh well, we always enjoy ourselves regardless.

So, I perused the 69 tap options and came across one I had never heard of before, 'Pumking.' It was under their fruit beers section, so I decided to try it. Boy was I in for a treat.

The copper color of this ale came as no surprise since it is a pumpkin beer. The smell of it alone was heavenly. My nose was caught off guard immediately. The smell of fresh baked pumpkin pie, crust and all hit my olfactory house like a one, two K-O! I felt my mouth start to water with anticipation. I took a sip and was blow away. I had to take another. Oh man, was this good. Had to take another. This was beyond divine. How had I never tried this before?! How had I never discovered it? Have I been living under a rock?! The taste was perfect. No bitterness what so ever, there is no hoppiness. The beautiful cinnamon and allspice notes are so well rounded with the vanilla and pumpkin that I have become to believe that this is the perfect fall beer. Peeeer-fect!

I have died and gone to beer heaven. I nursed it for 2 hours because I didn't want to rush it. I wanted to savor those sweet flavors. I wanted to let them linger on my tongue and enjoy every single moment with them. At the bottom of the glass, it felt like a bad break up. Over so soon? That was the best $6 I've ever spent on a beer.

My photo! From Jake's, straight from the draft!

My photo! Straight of the shelf from my local Total Wine!

Ok, so enough about my experience with the beer. Here's the low down on the brewery, which is very new to me. Pumking is the very first beer I've had from Southern Tier Brewing Company. Southern Tier is located out of Lakewood, NY and was founded in 2002. They have a number of year round beers, but based off their Facebook page, they seem to excel at their seasonal and imperial beers. Pumking falls into their seasonal imperial line. What makes it imperial? That lovely 8.6% ABV content. This beer, while being a slice of heaven, also brings to you a nice buzz. Southern Tier recommends that this brew be best served out of a goblet rather than out of a traditional pint glass or out of the bottle.

My guess is, this beer would make even Jack, the Pumpkin King, himself smile with delight. If you get a chance to try it, drink up!

Dancing Diva

2 Saturdays ago I drove to Charlotte to hangout with a friend of mine. I have been having a really rough time with my self esteem and after expressing my problems to her, she told me to come visit. So, I packed an overnight bag and did just that. I'm not overly fond of taking long trips by myself. Traveling makes me nervous. I'm always fearful of getting lost, breaking down, or having some sort of problem that I'm unable to resolve. I sucked it up and was on my way.

The ride down was quiet. I had my iPod to keep my company and the construction on I485 to keep me on my toes. A friend of mine let me borrow a GPS unit and the roads on I485 are so new that the Garmin kept saying, "Recalculating." It was making me uneasy, but I got on the right path. I made it there in one piece.

Our original plan was staying in, pizza, cookies, and wine. Just a quiet night. We were out on her apartment's balcony talking about my problems and how bad my depression's gotten. At the beginning of the week, we had decided to go uptown and go dancing. I decided against it the day before I left and she agreed, so we weren't planning on going. In the midst of our talking, I guess she realized that I really need to go out dancing. So, we did just that.

It was roughly 7:30 when we decided to go, so we had to wait a few hours to go. When it was time, we got ready. Brand new jeans purchased a few hours before from the Target clearance rack ($6.98 for a pair for $20.99 jeans!) and a new shirt from a second hand thrift store. A little make up, a quick run of the brush through my hair and I was ready to go.

EpiCenter, Charlotte, NC (courtesy of Google Images)

We drove to uptown Charlotte, which is beautiful, and parked in the deck. We had to wait a while for the bar to convert over to the dance floor. When it did, it took a while to relax. I had to get a drink in order to get into dancing and when I finally did it felt amazing. I didn't care about the men in the room. My friend and I were just there to have fun. Boy did we ever.

When she was ready to go, I checked my watch and it was nearly 2 in the morning. The night had flown by. My feet and legs hurt so much from dancing so hard. I woke up the next morning with a hangover, but it was totally worth it. I rode the high from that night for 3 days. It was amazing.

Halloween is Coming!

One thing you'll learn about me is that I'm a Halloween junkie. All things Halloween. Everything.

I love Halloween. I really don't know why. It's such a fun holiday that's has so many, deeply rooted traditions. You have Samhain in the pagan tradition to Dia de los Muertos in the Hispanic or Latin tradition, but it all comes down to honoring the dead and your ancestors.

Every year I put up a Halloween tree. I lucked out and found a black Christmas tree at Walmart one year. I purchased it and every year since then, I've collected little items to put on it. I had the tree skirt custom made for the tree. I had several scrap pieces of Halloween fabric and had a friend patch them together into a skirt for me.

Leaning a little big, my picture

A sparkly spider says, "Hello!"

A plastic pumpkin and a big, sparkly, black bow at the top!

Closer view of the tree skirt and some ornaments

Top half of the tree

I plan on keeping my tree up through Christmas. What's the point in taking it down? It is, after all, just a themed Christmas tree. 

I hope you enjoyed the pictures! Stop by again soon for more Halloween goodness.

Back From the Dead

So, I had every intention of writing a blog and maintaining it on a daily basis. Obviously, that didn't happen. I wish, very much that I could and perhaps I should put more effort into keeping up a blog.

I have a lot of random thoughts that roll around in my brain. There are a lot of things that I should probably get out there rather than keeping in. I've had a great deal on my mind lately and a lot of this should have been expressed. Perhaps I still have time.

I'll write more.

Breakfast Brownies

Before I started working at Grocery Z, I really didn't eat breakfast, but I found that if I ate something small, I felt better throughout the day. Well, I started to gain a little weight from all the sugary sweet stuff I was ingesting. I needed to find something that was better for me.

One of my friends, who had moved away, but stayed in touch via Facebook, had said mentioned that she made egg muffins. She said they were easy to make, froze well, and were super easy to reheat. The good things about egg muffins is that you can tailor them to your own tastes.

So, here's my recipe;
What you'll need:
12 large eggs
1lb sausage (I prefer Neese's or an all natural sausage)
1/2 green pepper
1/2 onion, I used a yellow onion because they're sweeter
Sriracha

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Dice 1/2 green pepper and 1/2 an onion, throw in a frying pan until soft. Add sausage and cook until no longer pink. Season to taste, this is where the Sriracha comes in. I like it spicy!
3. Set aside and cool.
4. In a separate bowl carefully crack open and add 12 eggs.
5. Gradually add sausage mix to eggs and stir until well incorporated.
6. At this point you'd scoop out about 1/4 cup of the mix into each muffin tin, unless you're me and you realize you left your muffin tin at your ex husband's house. In that case, you break out your trusty brownie pan!
7. Bake in the oven for 20-25 min or until a toothpick, inserted in the middle, comes out clean. The middle should be solid and not jiggly. That's the best way to describe it.

Let them cool and then cut them into squares and wrap with cling wrap. You can put them in the freezer or in the fridge. If you freeze them, when you're ready to eat them, put them in the microwave for a minute. Remove the wrap and enjoy!

Ballast Point

Thursday nights Mister and I can usually be found at our favorite bar, Jake's Billiards. They're a laid back kind of place with a ping pong table, dart board, a number of pool table, and a couple of other games as well as tables and booths. Oh, and 69 taps. Let's not forget to mention the numerous bottles of beer they have too. I think that number changes though. This place is awesome. There's nothing fancy about it. The atmosphere is casual and chill. The owners are pretty cool, they recognize our faces now, and the bar tenders and staff are always really helpful and friendly. We frequent there more than just Thursday nights, but there's a reason we go on Thursdays.

Everyone looks forward to Fridays, but I look forward to Thursdays. Why? Because Thursday is Pint Night at Jake's. The focus on a brewery, sometimes local and sometimes now, and with a purchase of one of that brewery's beers, you get a free pint glass. Needless to say, we're running out of room in our cabinets and now Mister is having to look into building shelves for his man cave.

Ballast Point Logo - taken from their web page

This past Thursday they highlighted Ballast Point. One of the nice things about Jake's is that they offer beers from all over the states. North Carolina offers a lot of great brews, but it's nice to branch out and see what other states have to offer. Ballast Point hails out of San Diago, CA. That immediately had me intrigued. I'd never had a beer from the West coast before. Yippee! So, what's on tap?

The first one was Sculpin with Ghost Peppers. The boys tried this one and apparently it was spicy, true to its name. Here are the brewer's notes on it;

"Our Sculpin IPA is a great example of what got us into brewing in the first place. After years of experimenting, we knew hopping an ale at five separate stages would produce something special. The result ended up being this gold-medal winning IPA, whose inspired use of hops creates hints of apricot, peach, mango and lemon flavors, but still packs a bit of a sting, just like a Sculpin fish."

I think this beer was neat. While it might not be popular, the idea behind it is unique. I've never heard of a beer like this before and while I wouldn't try it (not a fan of spicy food and ghost peppers scare me!) I'm sure there are dare devils out there who would eagerly stand up to the challenge of taking down a pint or two.

The next was was called Steam boat. They boys both like this one and this is actually what they ended up settling on. Here are the brewer's notes;

"Collaboration with our friends from Briess Malts and White Labs. We collaborated to make a beer and have it ready to be served at the 2012 Craft Brewers Conference. Briess Malts asked us to make a beer for them using their new Blackprinz malt (a husk-less variety of malted barley which they roast to 500 Lovibond). We use Great Western and Briess Malts in the brew to make a Hoppy Black California Common beer. Chinook, Amarillo, Centennial and Crystal hops were all used in large amounts. This warm fermented lager is ebony in color and obnoxiously dry hopped. Our inspiration came from many styles. The hop aromas of an IPA, the smooth roasted flavors and low bitterness from a German Swartz Bier and the fruity aromas derived from a warm fermentation of a lager yeast like a Steam Beer."

Next! It was my turn! Goody, goody! This one was really, really intriguing to me. It was called Boob Check. C'mon, who doesn't like a good brew that has a dirty name? However, this beer is an awareness beer, which makes it more serious. Remember ladies, save the ta-tas.

Boob Check - taken from Ballast Point web page

Yes, the beer really is that color. I should've taken a picture of it in the glass because it's such a nice color. My only gripe about this beer is that it's draft only. I would love, love, love to find this again. I'm really hoping Jake's will have it if we go again soon. Here are the brewer's notes;

"Premium malted barley, Galaxy hops, and British Ale yeast are the base of this hibiscus, cherry, honey, and lime beer. A crystal-clear deep pink hue invites you in while the complex fruity aroma comes from all of the ingredients combined, not just the Cherries. Hibiscus adds some bitterness and color, while the lime adds some acidity."

I am not a beer expert. I don't know what notes or flavors to look for. I just know what I like in a good beer and this, to me, was a good beer. The lime was what stood out the most. Mister and his friend didn't care for it, so maybe it's more of a female friendly beer, but it was delicious.

Our freebie pint glasses - picture taken by me!

Overall it was another successful pint night at Jake's. Ballast Point served up some good beers that didn't fail to impress. All three of us enjoyed our picks and while I can't speak for the other two, I do hope that we'll see Ballast Point on tap at Jake's often.

We're looking forward to next week's when they're bringing in kegs from Foothills brewery!

Toothless Thursday

I mentioned during my introduction post that Mister and I adopted a bearded dragon in February of 2013. So, now I have the pleasure of introducing you to Toothless.

When we got Toothless, he was about 8 months old. We guesstimated that he was born in August of 2012. We don't know where he came from, whether from a breeder or from a petstore. We bought him from a family who had a 11-13 year old boy. The mom's story is that the lizard was bought for the boy, it became his responsibility, and then all of a sudden mom was taking care of it. Mom didn't want to keep taking care of it, so they decided to get rid of him. Needless to say he is living a much, much happier life.

He enjoys sitting on the couch and watching hockey with me and Mister.

And there are nights when he will fall asleep on me. Look at that adorable face. 

How can you not love a face like that??

Moxxi Monday

Mister and I adopted our dog, Moxxi, back in September for 2012. She's pure delight to be around. Sometimes she makes us crazy or mad, but she's just like any other dog...sorta. Moxxi has definitely become the baby in our house, which is perfectly acceptable to both of us. Without further ado, here is Miss Moxxi.

This is our pretty girl. She's part Siberian Husky and part Border Collie. She's 100% crazy and a huge ball of energy. She's super smart. I'll post pictures of her a lot because she's our pride and joy. Life wouldn't be the same without her in it! You'll have to stick around if you want to find out more about our crazy puppy.

Some Introductions

I suppose I should give some kind of introduction. I'm not big on them though as I tend to start rambling and lose my concentration easily. Here's a shot at it.

I'm a 20 something living in rural North Carolina. I work for a small, independent grocery company and have been for a little over a year. My job is mostly enjoyable. It has its stressful moments, but they're few and far between. I might blog about it a little, if I do it'll be referenced to as Grocery Z.

Mister, which is what I call my boyfriend, works for a much larger company doing mostly manual labor. He and I met about 4 years ago, but we didn't start dating until September of 2012. We've slowly built our lives together. At the beginning of October in 2012, we adopted a puppy. Around February of 2013 we adopted a bearded dragon. He moved in with me back in October of 2013. Our lives are mostly normal, but we live a little bit of a crazy life. He's a hard core metal head and I was born and raised a (mostly) good southern girl. We're polar opposites, but somehow we were attracted to each other.

It was thanks to him that I found the wonderful world of hockey. It's been the only sport, to date, that I have actually gotten into. I have a profound love for the game now, even though there are parts that I still don't understand. He's a die hard Blackhawks fan. Just to show you how much, last year, after they one the Stanley Cup, he got a huge tattoo on his arm to commemorate their wins. It's pretty freaking awesome. I, on the other hand, root for the home team. I'm a Caniac through and through. Let's Go Canes!!

Umm... I love to cook. Well, mostly bake, but I don't do it every often anymore. I really have to be moved in order to bake. I do a lot more cooking as I get older. I like to craft too, when I have time. I can be pretty crafty. I like to make my own things. I have dabbled in sewing, quilting, painting, jewelry making, and a number of other mediums.

Well, there's a lot more I could ramble on about, but I think I've hit the highlights. Just keep checking back to learn more about me and my crazy life!

2014, New Beginnings

It's the first day of 2014. People across the world are making changes in order to better their lives. Some people plan on losing weight, some are trying to be more positive, and some thing resolutions are silly. Group me in with the people who think resolutions are silly. The only thing I want to do more of in 2014 is write.

I've had 2 semi-successful blogs in my past. 1 of them I deleted. 1 of them is still active, but I don't write on it anymore. Truth be told, I miss writing. I met a lot of nice, interesting people when I first started blogging, but I lost contact with almost all of them. Well, I plan on getting back into it. I really don't have a theme for my blog...yet. More than likely it'll be my musings, daily life, etc. I do enjoy cooking, but I don't want to turn this into a recipe blog. I may do product reviews. I do plan on on showing off my babies. I'm an avid hockey fan, pulling for the Carolina Hurricanes and the Chicago Blackhawks. I will post about my teams a lot. I'll post pictures, but I'm not a photographer by any means. I don't have a top of the line camera and a lot of my pictures aren't centered or in focus. But hey, that's part of life right? You can't be perfect in everything you do.

Like I said, this is a blog about life. Sometimes you have to tell yourself to "just keep swimming" in order to make it through. For now, here's the beginning.